Get Low

Get Low: it looks great, it sounds great, and you aren’t going to find better actors than Robert Duvall, Sissy Spacek, and Bill Murray.  Yes, the story’s thin, but you can’t always have it all.

In Get Low, Duvall plays an old hermit who lives in the woods.  He’s the man people fear, the one the kids whisper about around the campfire.  He’s tired of being whispered about, and hires funeral director Bill Murray to hold his funeral while he’s still alive.  He wants to give the townspeople a chance to tell their stories right out loud.  Could this be because Sissy Spacek, a presumed old flame, has returned to town after a long absence?

It’s no spoiler to say that Duvall’s character is more than meets the eye.  We wouldn’t have much of a film, otherwise.  As the drama unspooled, however, I found myself caring more about the actor than the character.  I felt like I was watching a great performer at work, and I dove into the film from that perspective.  In the film’s climax, Duvall gives us both barrels: I still recall this thing he does with voice and hands, and I challenge you not to be blown away.

This isn’t a great film, but it’s worth your time if you’re fond of these actors.  I am, and I walked away happy.

The Shining

There’s so much to love about The Shining that I don’t know where to begin.  This is the scariest ghost story ever put to film.  Its twin girls have become legendary.  “Here’s Johnny” brings Jack Nicholson, not Johnny Carson, to mind.  We remember Scatman Crothers not as a musician, but as a chef.

But there is one thing, one thing about which I hadn’t given much thought to prior to my last screening.  Musically, The Shining is extraordinary.  Yes, we all remember “Symphonie Fantastique” and the opening credits.  But think back to Jack and Danny in the bedroom, when Danny asks his father if he’d ever hurt him.  The music is another voice in the room, not just underlining the dialogue but mimicking, feeding off, building it into something more than two guys talking.  Or think about Wendy and the manuscript and the scampering strings like rats running up and down your spine.

So I wonder: is there a musical commentary track to The Shining out there somewhere?  I’d love to hear Gordon Stainforth, who edited preexisting music to replace the unsuccessful original score, walk me through his choices scene by scene, beat by beat.  His work is masterful, and I’d love to learn more about it.

Now that I think about it, I’m going to do a deep dive on The Shining.  I’m going to read what I can and watch whatever commentaries are out there and sink my teeth into this one.

It’s worth it, because The Shining isn’t just one of the best horror films ever made.  It’s the best, and it’s worth the effort.

Never Let Me Go

Never Let Me Go is basically Parts: The Clonus Horror, but for chicks.  Is has the same premise as Parts, but it goes for melancholy romance instead of horror thriller.

It would have been better as a horror thriller.

Never Let Me Go, which is about three clones and their love triangle, is supposed to make us cry as they try to find happiness in the face of mortality.  It made me think about how much better it would have been if they’d set out to confront an unnaturally long-lived Peter Graves.  This is a drab, depressing, ultimately dull film, and I wish I had a clone so it could have sat through it instead of me.

Bummer.

The Fighter

Recently, I looked through a buddy’s photos from Afghanistan.  Mark Wahlberg had come to his base to premiere The Fighter, and one of the photos showed the movie star carrying all his own gear out of the back of the C-130 on which he’d flown in.  Wahlberg, apparently, was a great guy: eating with the junior Marines, making time for a word and a photo with all who asked, and generally making his momma proud.

I’m sure Wahlberg went all the way to Afghanistan because it was the right thing to do.  It also worked as a promotional strategy, because I rented The Fighter the day I saw those photos.

It’s a hell of a good movie, but it’s hard to watch.  Wahlberg plays Mickey, a small time boxer in a family devoted to small time boxing.  His older brother Dicky (Christian Bale, phenomenal here) may have knocked down Sugar Ray Leonard once upon a time, but now he’s a pathetic crackhead.  His mother (Melissa Leo, unrecognizable after Frozen River) seems intent on managing him into oblivion.  The rest of the circus that comprises his family doesn’t seem much better.  Then Wahlberg meets Amy Adams (Enchanted, Charlie Wilson’s War), a local bartender and very tough broad who shows him another way.

I know what you’re thinking: “Why would I see this movie?  If I want to spend time with a dysfunctional family, I’ll go home for Christmas.”  See it for the performances.  See it for Mickey, a fighter who must learn to stop worrying about making everybody happy.  See it for Dickey, an ex-fighter who may never learn that it’s impossible to be a cool guy who also smokes a little crack on the side.  See it for their mother, who believes she’s the proud matriarch of a noble clan when, in fact, she’s a 70-year-long train wreck that’s about 2/3 of the way through.

The Fighter works, and it works because of these great performers.  Seeing this movie is like seeing a master class in the art of acting, and I enjoyed it for that alone.  All that, and Mark Wahlberg’s a good guy.  What more do you need?

The Secret in Their Eyes

The Secret in Their Eyes: this is how you make a good movie.

The picture, winner of the 2010 Academy Award for Best Foreign Film, weaves the story of a murder investigation with the developing relationship between two of the people working the case.  I know, it sounds like something you’ve seen on screens, large and small, in numbers beyond measure.  But stay with me.

The key to this film lies in the fact that it’s about people who think and feel.  Most films, it seems, are about people who speak and act, and we sometimes wonder if they say or do anything that doesn’t directly advance the plot of their collective story.  The Secret in Their Eyes, by contrast, presents us with complete and plausible human beings.  Yes, they’re complete and plausible human beings involved in an investigation, but in some ways that comes second.

And since we know them and since we care about them and since we believe in them, we buy into this film.  We connect with its people and go along with all its twists and turns, its reveals and surprises, and in the end we’re left with a movie that’s more than good – it’s satisfying, the way spending time with interesting people is satisfying.  This is how you do it right.

Thor

I didn’t care about Thor, so I didn’t care about Thor.  Since I didn’t care about Thor, I didn’t care about Thor’s antagonist, his love interest, his friends, or his problems.  You know who I did care about?  Agent Coulson, the guy who appeared to be Samuel L. Jackson’s #2 at SHIELD, which was sorta the FBI for superhero stuff.  He played a minor role in Thor, but I’d go to see a movie about him.

Here’s the problem: Thor (a totally ‘roided out Chris Hemsworth – I mean, really: compare a photo of him from the Star Trek reboot with a photo of him from this film) is a god.  Yeah, the film presents him as super sci fi bs alien, but he’s basically a god.  Not only is he a god, but he’s a dick of a god.  He’s obnoxious and egotistical and has a lot to learn.  The film is all about him learning to not be such a dick, but so what?  Show me a movie about a guy who isn’t a dick in the first place.

Natalie Portman plays Thor’s love interest, a graduate student in physics with her own ‘roided out Land Rover, her own supercool lab, and her own sidekick.  When I was a grad student, I could barely afford ramen.  How was I supposed to care about this magic princess scientist, doing research in her fantasy world?  Now, fine, I know what you’re thinking: this is Natalie Portman we’re talking about.  I don’t contest that she’s an absolutely outstanding actress, but this film gives her nothing to do, really.  Any reasonably competent, age-appropriate actress could have played this role (that is, pretty girl who digs ‘roided out guys who are dicks).  I doubt I’d have believed in any of them.

Thor’s friends?  Hey, they’re gods, too!  One’s a younger version of Xena, one looks like a youthful Cary Elwes with silly facial hair, one’s a glutton, and one’s just a guy with a mace who doesn’t even do anything cool.  I couldn’t relate to any of these gods.  If I met them socially, I wouldn’t like them and they wouldn’t like me.  Why should I care about them?

Loki’s the antagonist, here presented as Thor’s brother and, essentially, the nerd to Thor’s jock.  Problem is, he’s a god, too, so his problems also aren’t my problems.  What are his problems?  I’m not entirely sure (Well, he does wear a goofy helmet, and there have been times in my life when I could relate to that.).  Is he consumed with jealousy?  Is he ambitious?  Self-hating?  How ‘bout just plain evil?  I don’t know, and neither does the film.  It keeps changing.

Ok, so I didn’t like the characters.  What was so bad about Thor’s problems? I didn’t feel like I had a dog in the fight.  Since I didn’t care about Thor, I didn’t care whether he or Loki sat on the throne of Asgard.  Yeah, there was some stuff in there about evil frost giants, but I didn’t see them as a threat to Earth, so what exactly were the stakes for me?  I’ll tell you: zippy.

And yet, Thor manages to stay marginally entertaining for a couple of hours, thanks primarily to Kenneth Branagh’s direction and the presence of one Agent Coulson of SHIELD, assayed by Clark Gregg.  Coulson’s an actual human being, a disciplined and efficient government agent bringing cold federal processes to a fantastical world of heroes and monsters.  Now, that’s interesting.  I want to know more about this guy: where does he come from?  How’d he get into this business?  What does he think of all this craziness?  There’s your movie.

Generally speaking, I enjoy spectacular action movies.  I wanted to get into Thor.  It looked pretty, lots of stuff blew up real good, and Natalie Portman did bite her lip once or twice.  But I needed more.  I needed some skin in the game.  I needed to care.

The Last Airbender

I approached The Last Airbender with good will and low expectations.  I’d seen and loved the three-season animated series, and I’d heard that the film was terrible.  Nevertheless, I wanted to give it a shot. 

It was fine.

The film errs in trying retell the entire first season of the animated series in an hour and a half, leaving us with a movie that feels more like a highlight reel than a self-contained narrative.  It also takes itself ever so seriously, eschewing comic relief or any sense of joy in favor of portentiousness.  Further, it tries so hard to make us believe in the tormented nature of its villain that the guy comes off as not particularly villainous at all – that’s no fun!

And yet, hey, I like these characters.  I enjoyed seeing their world presented in live action.  I’d have stuck around for the two sequels, had this film made enough money to justify them.  We don’t get enough kid-friendly action movies in the marketplace, and I was willing to enjoy The Last Airbender for trying to fill that niche.

Yes, it didn’t entirely succeed, but I still found it a pleasant way to spend an hour and a half.  Really, you could do worse.

Last Year at Marienbad

How do I get you to see Last Year at Marienbad without telling you anything about it?

This film rewards ignorance.  It doesn’t want you to know its synopsis, or what someone else thought about it, or why you should see it.  It’ll put you in a place where you may feel disoriented, uncomfortable, perhaps not entirely sane.  It’s not doing this because it’s a bad movie.  Alain Resnais does not make bad movies.  It’s doing this because it knows exactly, precisely what it’s about.

It’s stunningly beautiful and demands that you see it on the silver screen, but will abide a small-screen showing if you have no choice.  Its music will haunt you.  Its performances will stay with you.  It will tease you and delight you and make you glad that you watch good films.

And that’s it.  I’m done.  If you’ve seen Last Year at Marienbad, you know what I’m talking about.  If not, queue it up immediately and thank me later.  This film is just that good.

A Woman Is a Woman

One could view A Woman Is a Woman (Une Femme Est Une Femme), Jean-Luc Godard’s second film, as a bold experiment in filmmaking or so much self-important hoo-hah.  I think it’s both.

Here’s the deal:  Godard’s first film, Breathless (written off here), was a huge success, marking him as a major innovator of the French New Wave of filmmaking.  I think the experience empowered Godard and compelled to keep innovating, to keep finding new ways of telling a story.  With A Woman Is a Woman, however, his new way includes silly, distracting tricks and unflattering cinematography of ridiculous people making poor decisions.

What kind of silly, distracting tricks?  Early in the film, the lead character (Anna Karina – more on her later) passes behind a pillar and undergoes an instantaneous costume change, one on which she comments.  Thereafter, we notice every time she passes behind an obstruction, waiting a beat to learn whether she changes again.  It pulls us out of the movie.  Later, Karina and her dumber-than-rocks boyfriend have an argument with a silly gimmick: they aren’t speaking, so they pull books off their shelves and show one another words from the covers to express their feelings.  Give me a break.

What kind of unflattering cinematography?  In his later Vivre Sa Vie (appreciated here), Godard uses black and white film to make star Anna Karina an epic beauty of endless fascination.  Here, his choice of garish color accentuates Karina’s nicotine-stained teeth and makes us recoil every time she smiles.

And what kind of ridiculous people making poor decisions?  I can’t even describe the plot of this film without sounding needlessly condescending, so you’re going to have to discover that for yourself, should you feel so inclined.  Let’s just say that I couldn’t believe that any sane woman would do the things Karina does in this film, and I’m not sure whether Godard expected me to.

So why call this a bold experiment, or even anoint it as hoo-hah, when it seems so obviously a failure?  I think we can do so because Breathless indicated a filmmaker capable of crafting a coherent and well-designed film, and Vivre Sa Vie indicated a filmmaker capable of crafting a masterpiece.  I think Godard was in control of his material, and I think he was feeling sufficiently self-important to try new ways of telling a story and showcasing characters.  Sometimes, experiments fail: A Woman Is a Woman was such a time.

Unstoppable

I can't top Joe Lefors's thoughts on this film.  With his permission, here they are:


I just watched this movie, and it was awesome.
Things that could not stop the train:
*The fat guy from Remember the Titans and other movies where he played a fat guy.
*HUD from Cloverfield.
*A redneck welder with a large pickemup truck.
*Many, many people on walkie-talkies.
*A horse trailer.
*A train full of schoolchildren.
*A device specifically constructed to stop trains that will not stop.
*Rosario Dawson's saucy attitude.
*Helicopters.
*A dude being lowered from helicopters.
*MACHINE GUNS
*Boxcars on the tracks.
*A sharp turn in the tracks.
*Another train attached to the back of the train.
Things that could stop the train:
*DENZEL
*That guy who played Captain Kirk in the GayGay Abram$ Star Trek where the ship was built on land 

Easy A

In Easy A, Emma Stone plays the daughter of Stanley Tucci and Patricia Clarkson.  I was already a Stanley Tucci fan and a Patricia Clarkson fan – I’m now an Emma Stone fan, as well.

Here’s the setup:  Stone plays Olive, a nerdy high school girl who’s embarrassed to admit to her best friend that she stayed home all weekend.  She concocts a story about a first sexual experience with a college boy, and she soon finds herself with a “reputation.”  One thing leads to another, and before she knows it she has a client list of social outcasts for whom she provides stories of imaginary sexual acrobatics in return for things like Bed Bath & Beyond gift cards.  As one can imagine, things spin out of control.

Holding it all together is Ms. Stone, who gives Olive a sweet combination of brains, comic sensibility, and pluck.  Stone, who was fantastic in Superbad and Zombieland, rolls into the A-list here, holding her own with Tucci and Clarkson and lighting up every minute she holds the screen.

Easy A is funny and brisk and thoroughly enjoyable, and much of that is due to Stone’s Charisma.  I understand she’s going to play Gwen Stacy in the new iteration of Spider-Man.  For the first time, I’m interested.

Black Orpheus

What a bold gambit: retell the story of Orpheus and Eurydice, set it in Brazil at Carnival, and infuse it with the rhythms of one of South America’s most vibrant cultures.  And what a payoff.

First, to recap the Myth of Orpheus and Eurydice (Thanks to Edgar and Ingri Parin D’Aulaire’s Myths of the Greeks and Romans.  If you don’t own a copy of this book, there’s something wrong with you.):  Orpheus, the great musician, loves Eurydice so deeply that when she dies, he goes all the way to Hades to bring her back.  The Lord of the Underworld permits her to follow Orpheus to the land of the living, on one condition: if he turns back to look at her, she’ll be lost forever.  Can he resist the temptation and gut out the journey to the surface, knowing that Lord Hades is a master of the doublecross?  Go buy a copy of the book and find out for yourself.

Black Orpheus spends much of its running time setting up the love between Orpheus, a trolley conductor, and Eurydice, a country girl come to Rio to escape a menacing gentlemen she lost in the backcountry.  The couple make an average looking pair, but I challenge any man to look upon Eurydice deep in sleep, her contented face haloed with tousled hair, and not see the great love of his life at the moment he knew he loved her.  Orpheus does.

But the man from the country finds them, finds them both.  He moves like a dancer and wears a death’s head mask and we’re not sure if he’s entirely corporeal.  But we do know that Eurydice’s time draws nigh, Carnival or no, and Orpheus’s quest will soon begin.  When it does, the film detours into a quasi-nightmare world, one of ferrymen and Cerberus and Eurydice, poor Eurydice, begging Orpheus not to look behind him.  It’s captivating and disturbing and unforgettable, and it works on every single level.  Black Orpheus will intrigue you and it will haunt you.  It will make you want to purchase a copy and press it into the hands of your friends. 

See it soon.

Space Battleship Yamato

Listen up, Nerd Nation: Space Battleship Yamato was designed specifically and precisely for you.  It is absolutely, positively, 100% nerd bait: filled with stuff that’ll push your buttons.

Naturally, I loved it.

First, it’s from Toho Studios.  As every nerd worth his GPA knows,  that’s the home of Godzilla and The Seven Samurai, Steamboy and Ikiru.  Second, it owes its production design to the ‘Battlestar Galactica’ reboot, which was the nerd television event of the last decade.  Third, and most importantly, it rips off Star Wars with more style than Lucas did.  This movie has it all: hotshot fighter pilots who must learn the meaning of responsibility, inscrutable aliens out to destroy the planet, and even a beautiful but straight-laced love interest who’s just one kiss away from melting into a soft-focus fantasy woman.

Space Battleship Yamato delivers all of this on a good-enough production budget.  It showcases performers such as The Hidden Blade’s Reiko Takashima, Sukiyaki Western Django’s Toshiyuki Nishida, and 2046’s Takuya Kimura.  And it does it all in a tone that makes it of a piece with any good space adventure movie you can recall.  It’s light, it’s fun, and it knows exactly what it’s about.  It’s nerd bait, sure, but consider me hooked.  

Animal Kingdom

Animal Kingdom is a horrible slog.

The film, set in the lower-middle-class world of a family of Australian bank robbers, tells the story of a 17 year old boy.  The boy finds himself immersed in this world, and he must learn to negotiate it.  The character, played by James Frecheville as a large, awkward kid just a few protein shakes away from hulking, is as dour and confused and scared a protagonist as you’re likely to find in a major crime film.  Oh, and he hides all this dourness, confusion, and fright behind a mask of emotionless indifference.

Listen, if I want to spend an hour and a half with dour, confused, and emotionless adolescents, I’ll volunteer to help out at my local high school.  I’m watching a movie, here: entertain me.

So anyway, Animal Kingdom’s got this kid and he’s frightened and withdrawn and all that.  Not much fun, right?  Well, at least the movie makes up for with a grainy look, an ugly color scheme, and absolutely zero comic relief.  I mean, come on – this thing’s a homework assignment, not a night at the pictures. 

Is Animal Kingdom well played?  Sure.  Does it do all the things it tries to do?  Yes.  Is it a grind?  Absolutely.  Animal Kingdom is the longest, most painful grind at the movies that I’ve experienced in quite some time.  Pass this one by.

127 Hours

127 Hours is fantastic!

If you’d told me that you could make a movie about a guy who gets stuck in a crevice for five days anything other than a tedious, painful slog, you’d have lost me.  But 127 Hours starts with a bang and propels us through an ordeal of thirst and increasing desperation with, dare I say it, verve and aplomb.

Here’s the setup: James Franco plays a fun-loving guy whose idea of a good time is heading out to the desert and biking, running, and climbing on his own.  Clearly, this character hasn’t seen any Werner Herzog documentaries, or he’d know that nature is intrinsically out to get him and he should never venture out without a buddy, a plan, someone who knows where he’s going, some signal flares, and maybe a short-wave radio.  Nevertheless, Franco’s a likeable fellow who appears to mean well, so we forgive.  While running along, he misjudges the stability of a piece of sandstone and falls into a crevice.  The piece of sandstone falls on top of him, pinning his arm to the crevice wall.  He’s alone.  He’s stuck.  He’s screwed.

Here’s the slog part, right?  Not at all.  Director Danny Boyle uses music, creative and exciting camera work, and a smartly crafted screenplay to keep us absolutely riveted on this story.  Franco tries various schemes to free his arm.  He deals with limited mobility and a dwindling water supply.  He hallucinates, he panics, he gets himself back together.  Ultimately, he decides he must cut his arm off to get free, then realizes that he’s dulled his knife by chipping at rock.  Now what?

This is powerful, exciting stuff, held together by Boyle’s virtuoso directing and Franco’s extraordinary performance.  I didn’t think I could spend an hour and a half with a guy pinned by a rock, but 127 Hours not only makes it work, it makes it pop.  127 Hours is phenomenal.

Hereafter

Clint Eastwood’s Hereafter tells three tales separated by time, distance and class, ties them together at the end, and leaves us feeling like we never really got into any of them.

In Tale 1, a beautiful and rich Frenchwoman has a near death experience and embarks on a journey of discovery about what we think we know about the afterlife.  In Tale 2, a boy loses his twin brother in a tragic accident and deals with the disillusionment that comes from seeing a variety of frauds who claim to be able to help him get in touch with his beloved sibling.  In Tale 3, a legitimate psychic tries to run from his gift because it’s virtually impossible to build a life when you spend all your time working with the dead.

Here’s the problem: unlike, say Amores Perros, which juggles its tales in a way that keeps us invested in all of them simultaneously, Hereafter makes us wish the damn thing would settle down with one story and tell it properly.  Just as we get in to a particular character’s life, the film changes focus and we feel frustrated.  Hereafter would have been much better served by telling its three stories one a time, then putting them together in last 15 minutes. 

I like Clint Eastwood.  I like this film’s performers.  I’d have loved to have gotten lost in Hereafter.  But this film errs in its structure, and it doesn’t work as well as it could.  Bummer.

Made in Dagenham

I’d watch Sally Hawkins walk her dog. 

This is not a beautiful or glamorous woman, but I’d have a thousand dinners with her before I’d so much as share a happy meal with Angelina Jolie.  Hawkins has an intelligence and vitality that makes her absolutely fascinating. 

In Made in Dagenham, which tells a true story, Hawkins plays Rita O’Grady.  In 1968, O’Grady led the women of the Dagenham Ford plant on a strike for a revolutionary proposition: equal pay for equal work.  It was something nobody else was even thinking about – most people just accepted that women should make less than men because, well, because that’s the way it had always been.  The film takes O’Grady from just another happy worker to full-fledged labor leader, and it shows how she grew into the role while maintaining her decency and discovering her extraordinary ability to lead.  Working with Albert Passingham (the brilliant Bob Hoskins), she carried her fight all the way to the top levels of British government and won.  She won because she was right, but she also won because she realized she could.

Hawkins endows Rita O’Grady with all the traits of an outstanding leader: drive, vision, empathy, organizational skill, and the ability to make her case.  She’s a pleasure to watch, and she transforms Made in Dagenham from just another earnest biopic to a bright, compelling, and wildly entertaining time at the movies.  I loved Made in Dagenham, and I can’t wait to see what Hawkins does next.

The King's Speech

The King’s Speech is a therapist movie, and such films rely on the skill and charisma of the actors playing the therapist and the patient.  This film has Geoffrey Rush and Colin Firth, as fine a pair of performers as you’re going to find working on the big screen, and they acquit themselves with professionalism and class.

In fact, The King’s Speech reeks of professionalism and class.  It’s like Masterpiece Theater on a big-screen budget.  And that’s fine and all, but I couldn't help feeling that the movie had no soul.  The King’s Speech hits every mark and feels very slick, and it is what it is.  If nothing else, it’ll remind you why you think so highly of Rush and Firth.  That’s ok, but I think that I’ll barely remember this film ten years hence.

Joan Rivers: A Piece of Work

“White.  All this white.  This is what Hell looks like.”   Joan Rivers pages through an empty appointment book.  Comics’ careers run hot and cold, and Joan’s been on a cold streak for some time.  Yes, she still lives in high style.  Yes, she can still fill a casino theater in South Dakota.  And yes, she’s still wickedly funny.  But, says Joan, “A career in the entertainment industry is a career in the rejection industry.”  Joan soldiers on, but the rejections are piling up.

And so goes Joan Rivers: A Piece of Work, a sojourn in the life of a performer who loves her craft and is so good at it that she can’t stop just because bookings are low.  Yes, she needs to earn enough to maintain her lifestyle.  However, there appears to be no Joan Rivers other than the Joan Rivers who’s either writing jokes or reviewing jokes or producing or performing or doing something to keep her in the public eye, to tell her that she’s loved.  She knows she went to far with the surgery and she knows that some consider her a relic.  Yet, George Burns performed well into his nineties.  Joan would consider that a pretty nice life.

Joan Rivers: A Piece of Work pulls us into Joan’s world and gets us to see past the surgery into the heart of a workhorse.  Laugh-out-loud funny, it records failures and successes both, while giving us a retrospective of Rivers’s career as a groundbreaking comic who walked away from her anointed position as Johnny Carson’s successor and who, in some ways, never recovered from that decision.  It’s engaging and fascinating.  It makes me want to see her perform in concert.  It turned me into a fan of Joan Rivers.