Welcome to the new Bang and Burn series. Where every week I'll be rounding up the best movie news and rumors and throwing in some commentary to boot.
The Wolverine gets it's first full trailer
The trailer looks great. I like the short hair look for Logan, and the tone and feel of the film is definitely different from the rest of the entries in the series. I like that we're left with a lot of questions, and no real antagonist shown. It looks to be more of a character study. And with director Mangold saying it's a japanese noir, and using Chinatown as an influence, hopes are high. And the bullet train sequence looks interesting.
If you haven't heard, Matthew McConaughey is in the midst of a career renaissance that has him over the moon at the moment. After a decade without a good film, McConaughey has rattled off Bernie, Killer Joe, Magic Mike, and Lincoln Lawyer and is working with Scorcese in Wolf of Wall Street, and what could be an Oscar role in Dallas Buyer's Club, and working with Jeff Nichols on Mud. And Paperboy, he was the best thing about that movie. Short story is holy hell is he back with a vengeance. Now, he could be getting his biggest role of all time with the lead in a Nolan film. I've always been a McConaughey defender, and although he has limitations as an actor, he's still damn fine. And Nolan is known for bringing out the best in his leading men, so this seems like a great pairing. Interstellar sounds like it's going to be a head trip of a film, full of action and hard science. Also with time travel and multiple dimensions, get ready for the Nolan bros to go full fledged on their beloved cross-cutting while writing the script.
Escape from New York Remake
Tom Hardy and Jason Statham are reportedly duking it out over who will get to be Snake. Snake is one of my favorite characters of all time. I can only hope Hardy gets it. Statham will just be Statham as Snake, Hardy is an exciting and inventive actor. And do you remember what Statham looks like with long hair?
Like a child molester...
Disney makes Cars spinoff "Planes" without Pixar.
As if Cars 2 wasn't bad enough we have this. And the main character is voiced by the ever-aggravating Dane Cook. On the bright side, Val Kilmer is voicing a plane with Anthony Edwards, so a Top Gun reunion is happening.
My film to see this week is Place Beyond the Pines. The new multi-generational crime drama from Blue Valentine writer/director and starring Ryan Gosling and Bradley Cooper.
Starring: Adrian Pasdar, Jenny Wright, Bill Paxton
Before there was Twilight and at the same time there was Lost Boys comes Near Dark. A sort of cult-classic vampire in west Texas tale. It's very 80's, and features a not very interesting lead performance, and doesn't do much to further the genre, but it's a lot like the Lost Boys. Using vampires to sort of be the skeezer, punk kids just having a good time. Throw in a love story and some family drama, and you have yourself a movie.
Killing them by ham-fistedly bludgeoning them to death with an oversimplified theme, is actually the title to this movie. Andrew Dominik must've gotten the words overt, in-your-face, and monotonous confused with subtext, subtlety, and good. It's a baffling, inert, and mostly pointless film that has all the ideas of something that could've been extraordinary. After seeing his (rightly) lauded epic Assasination of Jesse James, where he made a western feel new and interesting, I thought I was in for the same treat for a similarly tired gangster genre. Instead I was given a banal metaphor for petty crime and the american economy, where I can practically hear Dominik screaming from just off camera, "DO YOU GET IT?! DO YOU GET IT?! SEE WHAT I'M DOING HERE?!"
A card game is knocked off in Boston, by some petty thieves who think they're smarter than they are. We are treated to some 15 plus minutes of unnecessary background and exposition to set this up. This robbery is probably the most unpleasant, long, drawn-out, and flat boring robbery I've ever seen on film, it's the antithesis of something like Heat. All the while a presidential candidate is blathering away as the soundtrack, be prepared for this every other scene. Literally. And for shots to come to focus center on a TV, and not the actors, because it's not enough that we're drowning in the words. I also have to look at a TV in my TV of something I wouldn't watch on my TV. Anyway, a mob hitman or fixer is brought in to take care of everyone involved. Enter Brad Pitt. The protagonist (of sorts). Twenty-five (count 'em) minutes into the ninety eight minute film. This is probably where the movie should start since it's the first injection of energy into a dull thus far film.
Unfortunately that energy is immediately wasted by a long drawn out bureaucratic talk with Richard Jenkins who seems to represent the mob as a whole. I get it. It's drab and dull and banal because that's what bureaucracy is like and now the mob is like that and we get it, it's an analogy. That does not make it good entertainment. Or interesting. Or justified. And you come in thinking Pitt is going to get to act, considering Jesse James is his best character and performance on film. Nope. Pitt is rarely the target of the shots, and spends almost the entire movie reacting to less interesting characters. Like Gandolfini's washed up Mickey, who drinks too much and goes on drunken rants, recanting tales of old. Pitt sits looking the way we look. Eyebrows raised in disbelief, that we've been subjected to almost three scenes worth of nothing involving or interesting or relevant, just Gandolfini just rambling.
And if there is a narrative I missed it. I guess he shows up and kills the people. But there isn't any difficulty in doing it. Nor do we feel any particular way about it at all. The only upside to the film is that it has some really brutal violence (though it's unwarranted and seemingly out of place), and a nihilistic feel that makes you wish that was what he was going for instead of political speeches. Dominik also goes over the top with is camera stylings, in particular a scene where a character is high on heroin, and we are treated to the same camera trick over and over so that we get that he's high. Oh and just a few more times, in case you didn't get it. And every character just abruptly leaves. Either killed or just disappears. Like Dominik was writing it and remembered that they were in the story and just needed them gone.
I'm still startled over just how poorly the whole thing was executed. From conception to completion. It is possible to make a film that skewers your subject matter without in turn becoming your subject matter. If you want to make a scorch-the-earth damnation of the economy and american society, or a nihilistic fuck-all of the gangster genre you can do it without becoming a vacant hole where a movie used to be. The fact is, every movie that has tried to have something to say about the state of things (In Time, Dark Knight Rises) has faltered in doing so. Because they have "tried" to say it, without just making the movie and letting the themes and commentary arise organically. And like it's political figureheads filling the speakers, Killing Them Softly is completely artificial.
Starring: Audrey Hepburn, Cary Grant, James Coburn
Grade: C+
A relatively dated Hitchcockian flick, about a widow and a man who may or may not be a flim flam man (favorite synopsis I've ever read). Filled with real thrills, great suspense, and an illogical amount of humor, you can see the trappings of a genre that grew over the decades to come in films like Argo. However, it's no surprise when you know the guy playing the attractive lead can't be the bad guy. That surprise hadn't been invented yet.
Art imitates life in Joe Wright's new adaptation of the classic Tolstoy work. The pedigree is outstanding with Wright helming a script from Tom Stoppard and an all-star cast to boot, not to mention a high concept design to separate it from a typical period piece. So why was I left feeling a little underwhelmed? It's a solid film from Wright, but it doesn't hold par with his better works Atonement and Pride and Prejudice.
Anna Karenina (Knightley) follows the titular character who is in a loveless marriage to her husband (Law) who couldn't be more distant. When she happens upon a dashing young man (Johnson) her passion is ignited. And against societal rules and customs, and at the expense of everyone around them, and perhaps even themselves, they continue their affair, following it through to the last. Strong themes of jealousy, love, passion, marriage, and Tolstoyan social commentary abound. Can one build happiness on another's pain?
Knightley is luminous as the complex and difficult Anna. She is insecure, indecisive, impulsive, and trapped. We begin the film feeling for her, with such an unfeeling husband what self-respecting women wouldn't choose passion? We feel the Jane Eyre creeping in. However, Eyre, Tolstoy is not. There are great repercussions for this act against god, and Anna doesn't seem prepared for them. She is not so willing to give up the life being married to her husband has afforded her, and face the shame that comes with being a divorcee. As she flip-flops between the two men, our empathy wanes. She goes from trapped and the victim, to a selfish, cold-hearted, emotional tornado that is destroying everything around her and herself. Knightley goes for it with considerable aplomb.
However, she is not propped up the way she should be, and this is mostly Wright's fault. He gets the best out of her performance wise, but here he seems to have fallen in love with his concept of setting the entire film as taking place on a stage. Scenery comes and goes, some is 2D, toy models, and there are backstage areas. And aesthetically, these are all beautiful. The actors and scenes are sometimes performed in a Baz Luhrman-ish overly presentational style which adds considerable thematic interest. Stage lighting, frozen actors, and the choreography of some of the scenes are brilliant. Also, Wright's long tracking dolly shots are here, and the way he segues seamlessly between scenes is breathtaking at times. But this over-stylized production design is in great contrast with what is viewed as the pinnacle of realist fiction. In fact it's a polar opposite.Cognitive dissonance radiates throughout the film.
Knightley is supported by a dream cast, with Law doing his best not to be wooden with such a bore of a character, but who is so earnest and so forgiving that it is he who we end up siding with by the third act. And his cold, arms-length, calculated, distracted disposition that the film's style resembles. Not the hot-blooded passion and overwhelming emotions that Anna grows to experience. In fact as she heats up, the film cools off. Johnson doesn't have off the charts chemistry with Knightley, nor does he smolder like I imagine the character should.
The subplot of Levin and Kitty's love, the real love, which echoes Tolstoy's views on the matter, is nice, but seems at odds when we break for it, when I'm ready to build with Anna. Levin and his story is also the only story allowed to leave the confines of the theatre, representing the real aspect of love, but it is a jarring effect. Levin is essentially Tolstoy in the film, and is one of the few reasonable characters. But he's basically charisma-less, so doesn't leave the lasting impression he should.
The film's emotional climax also happens to soon, leaving the last 30 minutes as falling action, so when it leads to the shocking conclusion, there is no proper build. It just sort of happens. Wright takes a sizable chance with such a take on classic literature, and that is to be applauded. And the film is technically brilliant, features a wonderful lead performance, but it just doesn't add up to the sum of its parts. You're left remembering all of the wrong things, like many of the characters, unable to focus and to see what is really important.
Starring: James Franco, Selena Gomez, Vanessa Hudgens
Grade: A-
Who would've thunk it? Harmony Korine has made a critical and financial success of a film, without sacrificing any artistic integrity (eat your heart out David Gordon Green). Spring Breakers is by far his most accessible film, and his most fun, a trend he started with his contribution to the 4th Dimension with Val Kilmer. Spring Breakers is a burn it to the ground, scathing satire of the hedonistic pop culture world we live in, and the neon bikini wearing sheep who are doing nothing but imitating what they vaguely think MTV told them to do. But the beauty of it is that it's so brilliantly disguised by Korine's mad cap, hallucinatory avant-garde style, that most of the people who see it who are anything like those portrayed, will only think that it's just badass. Since Korine has freed himself of the dogme 95 rules, and is now playing with the idea of doing something more than just simply provoking his audience, he is showing some real flair.
Spring Breakers is plot-lite, but style heavy. Four college girls want to go to Florida for spring break. The only one that stands out is Disney girl Selena Gomez, because she is given a backstory of being the virginal churchgoer. She will spend most of the movie crying before heading home in the second act. Hudgens is the most vicious, but the other three are more or less interchangeable, that being the point I think. They don't have enough money to get to Florida, so what do they do? Call it quits and stay at school? No, they're sick of seeing the same thing. So they do what any reasonable student would do; they rob a chicken shack with water pistols and a mallet. And that is where it all begins...
In a beautiful continuous tracking shot we see the surprisingly violent robbery take place. Then they're off to spring break. From the opening scene we are presented with slow-mo boobs, beer, and party. A scene of utter debauchery and chaos is created. It's a sort of paradise for the stressed out kids, and indeed for a while it is. They drink, they party, they ride scooters. They're at the beach. Scene after scene, everyone is having such a good time. Until they're arrested at a party that gets a little out of control. Enter Alien. A local drug dealer/rapper bails them out. Played by James Franco covered in tattoos, a platinum grill, and cornrows, this instantly becomes Alien's movie.
And this is where things get interesting. This is why spring break is only a week. The girls talk about wanting spring break to last forever. How they really found themselves. How they wish they could just pause it and live like this forever. Well, Alien is a person who lives like that forever. Played with no interest in self-preservation (I don't think Franco has that instinct) but also without they self-awareness that has been plaguing Franco's work the last few years. It's his best performance since 127 Hours, and top three best performance, along with his character in Milk. Alien is the MTV lifestyle epitomized. He has a 3 minute monologue where he incessantly repeats "Look at my shit" while showing the girls his guns, cash, and other admittedly impressive displays of wealth. He has Scarface on repeat.
Through him the girls learn the true meaning of the repeated-like-a-mantra phrase "Spring break 4-eva." The rob, steal, injure, have sex, get high, drink, and party all day. It's the american dream. The fun never stops. Except it does, and this is where Korine's penchant for prodding his audience comes through. As the "fun" begins to become tiresome, dangerous, and repetitive, so does the film. With lines of dialogue being repeated, layered over the top of scenes reshot from different angles, as the girls lose themselves, so do we lose our grip on reality. Each scene change is accentuated by a gimmicky gun shot or cocking, colors are over-saturated, slow motion, images become distorted. Suddenly naked women become repulsive. A gangstered out Alien sings a Britney Spears song while playing the piano as the girls sing along, holding assault rifles and masked in pink ski-masks.
It culminates in a scene of violent decadence, as if Korine just wanted to take a shot at the rap music video world. Interspersed with the two remaining girls making confessional phone calls home, saying how they want to be better, reminds me of a comic book I once read. The main character asks, "how do you know you want to be a good person unless you've done the worst thing possible, and then chosen to be good?" These girls have done that, found themselves by losing themselves. And perhaps Korine has as well.
Starring: Frank Langella, Peter Saarsgard, Susan Sarandon
Grade: B-
High concept indie films have really found a niche these last few years with movies like Another Earth and Safety Not Guaranteed being two shining examples of what the subgenre is capable of. Robot and Frank arrives as a small and subtle entry into the field, just smart and clever enough to earn merit. As the audience, we bring some preconceptions about humans and their automated pals from films like 2001 and Moon more recently. New ground is not exactly broken, but there is some subtle playing with memory and the loss of it here, that adds an undercurrent of real depth.
Frank is an elderly man, given to bouts of dementia. He can't remember people, restaurants, or exactly what time period it is. His memory is fading, and in the near future, a home is not the only option. A robot caretaker is provided for him by his son (James "Milquetoast" Marsden), who is sick of making the long trip to see him, and the lack of gratitude from a strained relationship doesn't help. See, Frank used to be a high-end cat burglar, and that skill, and the penchant for thieving, seem to be all that has really stayed with Frank.. The robot seeks to improve his health by starting a garden, and preparing healthy food, Frank proclaims he'd rather die eatingh cheeseburgers. Most americans would agree. But after much chagrin, Frank warms up to the robot. They mostly bond by planning heists together.
Frank has a crush on a librarian, whose library is being retrofitted as some augmented reality center. Frank is unimpressed. What he is impressed by, is the wealth of those involved, noting their jewelry at a party. The next heist is on. But there are no clean getaways.
Frank is played wonderfully by Frank Langella, who is a consummate professional, and I was reminded of his performance in Starting Out in the Evening, playing another aging man whose greatness is behind him. Peter Saarsgard was a good choice for the robot, and makes the expressionless little guy lovable (as if he already wasn't). Susan Sarandon, James Marsden, and Liv Tyler don't really impress, with characters sketched out no more definitely than Frank's fuzzy memory of them. His strained relationship with his family is alluded to, and hinted at, but never fully developed as the emotional subplot it could've been.
As the heat catches up to Frank and the robot, Frank is forced to make some tough choices, and finds himself to still be the manipulative angle-player he is. The last act has some unneeded twists, and a tacked on redeeming epilogue that isn't warranted by the scene preceding it. The wonderful concept isn't quite capitalized on like I would've liked to see, but the dialogue and moments between Frank and his robot are worth the price of admission alone.
