With today’s eyes this version of the Battle of Thermopylae serves only ‘Sword and Sandal’ genre enthusiasts (although this one was Greek-made with Hollywood involvement) and curiosity seekers interested in the origins of Frank Miller’s cult graphic novel 300 and by association the monumentally successful Zach Snyder film. Otherwise it’s a dull historical actioner from start to finish.
Showing posts with label **. Show all posts
Showing posts with label **. Show all posts
Thursday, 6 March 2014
Monday, 29 July 2013
Trance
Wednesday, 12 June 2013
Cleopatra
'Cleopatra', notable for being the most expensive movie ever made, the subject of heavily-consumed gossip fodder, and it’s place as one of biggest Hollywood ‘flops’ of its time, carries a lot of baggage. But unlike the glorious rediscovery and new appreciation of Michael Cimino's equally-loaded 'Heaven’s Gate', 'Cleopatra' never surmounts its expectations as a bloated and creatively bland sword and sandal picture.
Tuesday, 28 May 2013
The Last Stand
Undone by the casting of slow and wobbly Arnold Schwarzenegger, this is simply a very sad Hollywood debut for renowned and wholly inspiring Korean director Kim Je-Woon, of ‘I Saw the Devil’ fame. We only have to look to Chan-wook Park's brilliant Stoker as a superior example of a successful Asia-to-American transplant.
Monday, 6 May 2013
Not Fade Away
David Chase’s overly nostalgic and dull trip down memory lane has us yearning for the acid flashback version of Oliver Stone. Not Fade Away is so dominated by its pop music touchstone it crushes any attention to character and story.
Monday, 22 April 2013
Oblivion
Joseph Kosinski’s Tron Legacy followup mashes together plotting elements and visual design cues from other better science fiction films to arrive at another dead and soulless inert movie. At least the neon-infused Apple-inspired visuals of Tron connected to the previous film, here the cobbled together melange adds to something significantly less than the sum of its parts.
Friday, 25 January 2013
Peter Pan
Arguably the worst of the Disney features up until that point, part of the general trend of decreasing returns since the pre-War Golden Age of Animation. Disney’s Peter Pan opens with a deservedy ‘magical’ touch Walt was known for but gradually devolves intp a looney toon-style comedy and rather shameful stereotypical depictions of First Nation peoples.
Tuesday, 8 January 2013
Dredd
Under the guidance of British filmmakers outside of the Hollywood meatgrinder there’s some excitement that the sophistication and intensity of the alterna-comic would translate better to cinema. Unfortunately good intentions go awry here, as Dredd suffers badly from dull heroes, dull villains, and an over confidence in its own cold, detached ultraviolence.
Tuesday, 11 September 2012
TIFF 2012 - At Any Price
With his social-realist cred from acclaimed festival hits 'Man Push Cart', 'Chop Shop' and 'Goodbye Solo', Bahrani appears to venture out with something more accessible in 'At Any Price'. The casting of familiar Hollywood actors like Dennis Quaid and Zac Efron promises to open up his fanbase beyond critics. Unfortunately, this picture is a mixed bag of soap opera melodrama and morally thought-provoking situations with his familiar salt of the earth characters, a blend which never coalesces into something memorable or believable.
At Any Price (2012) dir. Ramin Bahrani
Starring: Dennis Quaid, Zac Efron, Kim Dickens, Heather Graham,
By Alan Bacchus
We’re in the Midwestern prairies and its small-town rural working class farmers. But it’s definitely not a quiet idyllic lifestyle. By the transactions of land owners, farmers, suppliers and dealers the business of corn is as competitive and cut-throat as big oil. Bahrani centres on the Whipple family, specifically Henry Whipple (Quaid) and Dean Whipple (Efron), father and son with two different views on life. Henry has inherited the family farm and treats his business as a typically aggressive capitalist enterprise. Dean, on the other hand, has gotten the short shrift in his family compared to his deified older brother, and he desires to become a champion race car driver.
Henry is pretty shady, typified by the opening scene in which he shamelessly tries to buy a man’s land from the son of a recently deceased land owner. And when he speaks to people, his pasted-on smile and false modesty wreaks of the most disreputable slime ball salesman.
For much of the film we’re waiting for the shoe to drop. Before then it’s a slow-burning character study of Dean and his contentious relationship with Henry. Henry’s shady dealings have treated him well, but his comeuppance is near and the Jenga tower of lies and deceit threatens to topple down due to a couple of key plot turns.
Though very little happens through two-thirds of the film, Bahrani admirably makes up for the slow burn by turning the screws extra tight on his characters in the third act. What’s revealed is a morally complex series of choices for Dean and Henry with immensely dramatic ramifications for them and the family.
Unfortunately, Bahrani falters in a number of places throughout. The imprecision with his tone is a distraction. For much of the time, we’re never quite sure whose film this is. When we realize its Dennis Quaid’s film, his miscasting or weak performance fails the film. At once Henry is an arrogant business man, but he's played with strange awe-shucks affability.
Zac Efron as the wild child living in the moment and on instinct recalls James Dean’s most famous roles in East of Eden and A Rebel Without a Cause. Efron's performance is the best, and his character is the most interesting. He has long since graduated from teen-mag stardom and is magnetic on screen. His blue eyes are beautifully expressive, and despite his handsomeness he can pull off the working class ruggedness of a young Tom Cruise.
Next to Zac is the fine character actor Kim Dickens as the pragmatic mom, Irene, who at every turn seems to be the only one who can see the forest from the trees. She easily sees past her husband’s attempts to hide his infidelity, yet her subdued response implies that she knows a divorce would make their precarious situation even worse. In the final act her acceptance of her husband’s even more diabolical scheme is outright breaking the law, but in accepting all of her husband's immoral behaviour she admirably takes ownership of the family and earns the title of the film.
The melodramatic soap opera plotting never really matches up with the slice-of-life realism of the first half of the film.
**
Tuesday, 24 July 2012
Chariots of Fire
The iconic shot of the athletes wearing Wimbledon white, running through the beach, splashing water in slow motion set to the synthesized grandeur of Vangelis's score buoys most of this picture. Looking back, the story of a group of British track and field athletes and their collective journeys to the 1924 Olympics in Paris, fighting for King and Country, is as stuffy and stodgy as British period films come, and is arguably one of the least memorable Best Picture Oscar winners.
Chariots of Fire (1981) dir. Hugh Hudson
Starring: Ben Cross, Ian Charleson, Nicholas Farrell, Nigel Havers, Sir. John Geilgud, Ian Holm
By Alan Bacchus
A dual story essentially, Ben Cross, as Harold Abrahams, is a dash-runner and a Jew, who at every turn battles the stubborn, racist British class system, as well as his feelings of self-doubt. Eric Liddell (Ian Charleson) also runs the 100-meter dash but is a devout Christian and, compared to Abrahams, Britain's golden boy. This is ripe material for dramatic conflict, but director Hugh Hudson never finds the core that connects these stories.
Colin Welland's script hops and skips through the years leading up to the Games, but with little dramatic gravitas. Abraham's fight for recognition as a Jew in the mostly Anglican Christian Cambridge school mildly exposes Britain's legacy of elitism and class hierarchy, but it never really passes any significant judgment. And Eric Liddell's moral stance about not running on Sunday is admirable but hardly heroic or rousing entertainment.
Hudson, who came from the same background in British commercials as Ridley Scott and Adrian Lyne, creates a handsome production but shows little of the visual inspiration or inventiveness of his contemporaries. Other than his expressionistic use of slow motion, Hudson's imagery carries very little drama or emotional weight.
Even the sports scenes fall flat. None of the main players ― Charleson, Cross, Nigel Havers or Nicholas Farrell ― look like athletes at all. The Vangelis score is still the highlight, a copy of which is included as a CD in the Blu-ray packaging. The electronic synth sounds date the film to the '80s, but it's the best of this unique era in film scores, providing the only memorable counterpoint to the film's otherwise restrained stuffiness.
**
This review first appeared on Exclaim.ca
Friday, 13 July 2012
American Reunion
Enjoyment of this film will likely depend on whether you find these characters, 13 years on from their modest hit 'American Pie' launched in 1999, interesting enough to revisit. Let’s not forget the original film was a mostly forgettable cheesefest masquerading as lewd Porky’s-style sex-com. This film brings back all these ‘beloved’ characters for an equally cheesy, mildly funny romp, tepidly commenting on the inadequacies of mid thirties life crises.
American Reunion (2012) dir. Jon Hurwitz, Hayden Schlossberg
Starring: Jason Biggs, Seann William Scott, Chris Klein, Thomas Ian Nicholas, Eugene Levy, Alyson Hannigan, Eddie Kaye Thomas
By Alan Bacchus
Really this film and the other three are only good for two or three scenes at best - the continued series of excruciatingly awkward and embarrassing situations the affable Jim Lewinstein (Biggs) finds himself in. Here, Jim is married to his sweetheart Michelle (Hannigan) but finds himself in a sexually inert relationship burdened by his status as a dad. But when he’s back in town cavorting around his old stomping grounds with his buddies, he eventually finds himself in a car with his 17 year old hot female neighbour drunk and getting naked and frisky with him. But when he crashes his car into a tree and has to sneak her into her house under cover of her parents, this is genuinely terrific sequence.
The rest of the picture goes through the motions of tracing the feelings of inadequacy of the other characters, all of whom try to project an image of success to their friends, but harbour deep regret and envy. Unfortunately the actors playing these old characters are directed to be the same caricatures as before. Fitch (Thomas) for example, still wears a scarf and talks in pseudo intellectual poetry. Oz (Klein) is a celebrity sports commentator living a shallow lifestyle with his horny girlfriend, but who still has feelings for his old flame Heather; and Kevin, (Nicholas) now bearded because he probably still looks the same as he did 13 years ago, is sadly left to share acting space with a really spaced-out Tara Reid.
Seann William Scott, the best actor of all the young cast, tries too hard to ‘be’ Stiffler, a clear indication Scott moved on from this character a long time ago – watch his brilliance in Michael Dowse’s Goon, for a strong contrast. Surprisingly John Cho (an alum of the directors’ Harold and Kumar pictures) gets some welcomed face time as the ‘milf’ guy who organizes the reunion.
Eugene Levy’s presence is never taken for granted. He’s really the co-star of these films. His awkward relationship with Jim, results in the best humour in any of these pictures. It was the reason why this franchise even exists, the titular ‘Pie’ sequence and the super awkward father-son talk afterwards, a great gag which has buoyed this franchise through four films.
But really, American Reunion barely floats. With the exception Jim and his dad, all these characters are all forgettable caricatures of the cinematic high school experience. If anything, what’s most impressive is the producer/director’s ability to convince everyone that this company of players are still relevant in the pop culture landscape.
**
American Reunion is available on DVD and Blu-Ray from Universal Home Entertainment
Wednesday, 30 May 2012
Safe House
Starring: Ryan Reynolds, Denzel Washington, Sam Shepard, Brendan Gleeson, Vera Farmiga
By Alan Bacchus
An unlikely success to be sure, Safe House surprisingly garnered over $120 million at the North American box office. Unfortunately, the story of a lowly CIA safe house operator who finally gets to see some action when a notorious counterspy arrives to stay with a lot of international baddies trailing behind plays like a decent though forgettable Tony Scott knockoff.
That said, we’re put into a unique setting for this picture, Cape Town, South Africa. Denzel Washington’s character, Tobin Frost (great name), is trading a secret file with a rogue CIA agent. After an attack by some big-nosed, slick haired and overall nasty looking gunmen, Frost escapes into CIA custody and is moved to a safe house. Enter Matt Weston (Reynold), a nebbish family man whose career is more like a glorified housekeeper. But when Frost arrives he finds himself eye to eye with a legendary international criminal.
When that big-nosed baddie returns to the fray and finds Tobin at the safe house, it becomes a desperate chase with Weston and Tobin forced to work together to survive. As expected, a few twists and turns in the action involve characters switching allegiances, ultimately revealing Tobin as the keeper of some of the CIA's darkest secrets.
The course of action and its execution play out with only adequate cinematic skills. It’s Daniel Espinosa’s first American film after his decent international hit Snabba Cash. That film showed some promise of a tough action filmmaker, but the underwhelming and turnkey nature of Safe House instills little hope that Espinoza will be anything special.
Reynolds and Washington, the great actors that they are, make a good duo. Denzel commands most of the film, playing his nebulous baddie role with the same kind of aplomb as recent minor hits Unstoppable and Book of Eli. Denzel can do so much with very little. He rarely needs to speak, instead showing the confidence of his character with action and reaction. All the other character actors, including Sam Shepard, Brendan Gleeson and Vera Farmiga, have grossly underwritten stock roles borrowed from other new millennium action thrillers.
The third act plays out the expected expression of mutual admiration and brotherly loyalty developed between Weston and Tobin, and the final gunfight, in which all the characters are blasting each other in one confined space, lacks any cinematic imagination. As such, despite very strong creative minds involved here, Safe House settles into ordinary boilerplate filmmaking.
**
Safe House is available on Blu-ray from Universal Home Entertainment.
Tuesday, 24 April 2012
The Innkeepers
Starring: Sara Paxton, Pat Healy, Kelly McGillis
**
By Alan Bacchus
There’s much to admire in Ti West’s creepy and understated haunted house film in which a pair of lowly minimum wage underachievers attempt to capture the essence of an alleged ghost in a rundown mountain view hotel. It’s a playful film with a consciously restrained quality, a mix of comedy and suspense without ever succumbing to exploitative gore and horror. That said, there’s just not enough guts to this story to truly satisfy its audience beyond the atmosphere and tone.
Taking place largely in a single location, a quaint Victorian inn which comes off like a low budget version of The Shining’s Overlook Hotel, West introduces us to Claire and Luke (Paxton and Healy), who are employed as the last two staff members of the inn on its last day before closing down. Luke, who runs a paranormal ghost hunting website, is there to take audio samples of a ghost named Madeline O'Malley, rumoured to have haunted its confines for decades, with the unambitious Claire tagging along mainly for the fun.
There are a few guests for the evening, each with their own idiosyncrasies that contribute to the uneasy feeling of dread. Kelly McGillis turns in a creepy performance as a has-been actress staying for the night. And the presence of an old man who arrives to spend one night in his old room to rekindle the feelings of his honeymoon is chilling.
West succeeds in creating the gothic tone of a Hammer Horror mystery, from the moody atmospheric music to the classical widescreen photography reminiscent of John Carpenter’s great films of the ‘80s, right down to the chapter breaks written in old gothic script and designed like 1920s title cards.
While The Innkeepers plays directly off of The Shining, West's aesthetic sensibilities resemble 1980's John Carpenter (i.e., The Fog, Prince of Darkness), floating his widescreen anamorphic camera through empty hallways with Carpenter-like panache. But unfortunately West is missing the bravura escalation of action and horror marked by both Carpenter and Kubrick. Indeed there is a ghost with a grisly backstory who looks downright scary in her brief flashes, but we simply don’t see enough of the spectre. With murky or non-existent motivations, we don’t ever see O'Malley as a character, thus we don’t really fear her either.
Ti West’s camerawork is teasing, building up a number of moments but rarely paying them off. For example, he crafts a terrific sequence in which Claire investigates an open cellar door. West gives us a traditional false scare when the terrifying silence is interrupted by a bird flying out of the dark space, but he leaves the scene without paying it off with a real punch. The cellar does come back into play in the final scene, but it’s still a wasted set piece, indicative of the underwhelming quality of the film as a whole.
The Innkeepers is available on Blu-ray and DVD from Entertainment One in Canada.
Sunday, 25 March 2012
The Hunger Games
Starring: Jennifer Lawrence, Josh Hutcherson, Liam Hemsworth, Woody Harrelson, Elizabeth Banks, Lenny Kravitz
**
By Alan Bacchus
I knew two things about this film before going in: One, that it's the story of a group of teenagers thrown together in a forest-arena of sorts to fight out some kind of battle to the death; and two, that it originated from a series of books aimed at young adults. And assuming the target audience for the film would be those same young people, something just didn't add up. How do you tell a story about such a sick and twisted blood sport which inexorably leads to everyone dying and not have it violent, grisly bloody and thus rated R?
Simple, you cheat the audience, and deliver a syropy and soft ultra light version of Battle Royale, the monumentally superior version of this story made in Japan in 2001.
The opening is especially clunky, establishing the near future and dystopian world where a 'Pan American' state, post WWIII, is divided into 12 districts policed in part by the aforementioned annual spectacle of death called The Hunger Games. The visual design of this world is dull and unimpressive, combining the rural future landscape of say, The Postman, where technology is only in the hands of the elite, and the garish pop art world of Speed Racer, wherein the Games organizers strut around in renaissance style coloured wigs and caked on makeup.
The set up involves showing how a boy and girl are chosen from each state to compete in the games to the death. Naturally, there's immense fear and trepidation from all those who qualify. We know Jennifer Lawrence's character Katniss Everdeen will get chosen (well, kind of), but it's the male choice, Peeta Mellark (Hutcherson) a character we don't know that allows the gravitas of the situation to set in. Unfortunately this fear is gradually wittled away as the film moves along.
A high concept like this requires bullet proof plotting and character motivations in order suspend our disbelief. If this can't be achieved filmmakers have a couple other options at their disposal. Tone, specifically humour, allows us to glance passed illogical plotholes. Most of the comparable films made in this genre are satircal. Battle Royale, for sure, had a sharp acerbic wit, Death Race 2000 had similar political overtones but under the guise of a shameless b-movie. The Truman Show figures prominently in the mix as well, but which had a very direct and effective statement on reality television and voyeurism. The Hunger Games does not appear to allude to anything, or have any kind of message. We're simply asked to accept this world as reality without question. A world where civilization has devolved to such a bloodthirsty state that the population at large would not only allow this to happen but cheer it on. I didn't buy it for a second.
That said, I don't disapprove of spilling the blood of minors for the sake of entertainment. Indeed this is what I wanted to see, but was willing to accept an alternative if there was some kind of intellectually superior substitute. Nope, it turns out to be a love story, setting up a Twilight-like love triangle in the ensuring films.
Blood or not, we don't even get to see some cool action. Gary Ross's abysmally directed action scenes are shot with that generic 'television-style' shaky camera where you don't really see anything. Thus, no panache, no flair, no excitement, avoiding bloodshed at costs which is most likely the reason for the annoying camerawork. Of course, this goes back to the audience, young adults, the Twilight audience who can't pay to see R-rated movies. There's nothing wrong with that, but it just makes Ross' job more challenging - something he sadly fails at.
Another shameful creative decision was to portray the other kids in the Games as 'evil', violent baddies who revel in the sport, as opposed to the innocent youth, simply chosen at random by the state. We don't get to know any of the other contestants, other than their black and white characterizations.
The only thing to praise in this film is the section after the participants are chosen and before they are put into the arena. It's this 'training period' where we meet Katniss and Peeta's mentor, played by Lenny Kravitz and Woody Harrelson who engage the pair with genuine affection, forming the strongest relationships in the film. Unfortunately, I think we have to wait until parts 2 and 3 before we see how these relationships play out.
Monday, 19 March 2012
The Machinist
The Machinist (2004) dir. Brad Anderson
Starring: Christian Bale, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Larry Gillard Jr. Michael Ironside, Aitana Sánchez-Gijón
**
By Alan Bacchus
Back in 2004, having been a huge fan of the underrated and little-seen horror flick, Session 9, I remember greatly anticipating this follow-up picture – a moody thriller about a hypochondriac suffering some kind of mental breakdown. Unfortunately, it never really manages to work entirely. Anderson tries his best to intrigue us with his expert abilities with mood and tone, but there’s just not enough going on to truly entertain us.
Christian Bale plays Trevor Reznick, a grossly underweight machine operator harbouring such internal hidden trauma he’s feared by just about everyone he comes in contact with. He enjoys spending time either with his favourite call girl, Stevie (Jennifer Jason Leigh), or buying coffee from an airport diner waitress, Maria (Aitana Sánchez-Gijón).
Creepy things start happening to him, which fuels a deep-rooted paranoia that eventually comes to light. Reznick starts seeing mysterious post-it notes placed on his fridge, has nightmares of an amusement park ride called Route 666 and sees a creepy stranger wearing mirrored sunglasses, who appears to him at random. It's all randomness until the final act when the puzzle pieces are revealed to be fractured memories of a painful moment from the past, which his mind and body are desperately trying to forget.
One of the main talking points of the film was Christian Bale's dramatic weight loss. To the detriment of the film, his physique has an effect outside the context of the story. Bale is beyond weight loss, as his character is emaciated and malnourished, an effect of his deep psychological trauma. It’s an overpowered device and a distraction from the film.
Like Bale’s body, the story has only a bare bones skeleton of a plot on which to hang. The central problem is that so much of the film occurs in Reznick’s head. The entire thing feels like a dupe to the audience – a single piece of information held back from the audience fuels the entire film.
And so, Anderson has only his genre skills to work with. He creeps us out as best as he can with some wonderful surrealist imagery, which would be used more effectively in a better film. The factory scenes feature long close-ups of the machinery grinding and churning out the molded metal. A number of these scenes build to a moment that we know is bound to happen - one of the workmen getting caught in the machinery. We do get that scene, and it’s a doozy. But to what end? A great scene wasted in a dull movie.
The ending, which neatly ties up all the randomness of Anderson’s imagery, feels like a cop-out, a matter of convenience revealing only an obvious manipulation of a single plot twist into an entire feature film.
The Machinist is available on Blu-ray from Paramount Pictures Home Entertainment.
Sunday, 4 March 2012
Nightwatching
Nightwatching (2008) dir. Peter Greenaway
Starring: Martin Freeman, Jodhi May, Emily Holmes, Eva Birthistle
**
By Alan Bacchus
Enjoyment of Nightwatching will depend largely on your ability to stomach the tedium of Peter Greenaway – that intensely idiosyncratic British director known for lavish, overly theatrical and often debaucherous art films – the British version of late-career Fellini. Greenaway's latest tells the story of Rembrandt in the golden age of the Dutch empire and his journey to painting his most famous work, Nightwatch.
Like Guido in Fellini’s 8½, the film establishes Rembrandt, already a revered painter, as highly coveted by everyone to commission his next work. He chooses an offer from the Amsterdam Civil Guard, depicting the militia in a group portrait, only to get embroiled in a murder mystery that exposes the political crookedness of the group.
All the hallmarks of the Greenaway style are here, including impeccably composed classical frames heavily populated with lavishly costumed characters and extravagantly decorated production design. While visually stunning, like most of his work, it's a difficult film to penetrate. Lengthy, wordy dialogue sessions play out the complex conspiracies and historical analysis of the great painter and his work. There’s obviously great intelligence and deep character and artistic examination going on, almost all of which, admittedly, went way over my head.
For me, the only watchable element from these doubting eyes is Martin Freeman’s witty performance. Freeman, known for his affectionate Tim character in the original British version of The Office, inhabits Rembrandt’s skin admirably, giving us a highly accessible entry into what probably could have been a stodgy old theatrical character, much like the working class affability of Tom Hulce’s Mozart in Amadeus.
As usual, the visual palette includes large expansive and sometimes near-empty sets, theatrical in look, feel and sound. Often the characters talk directly to the audience like a Shakepearean soliloquy, the same feeling we got from the staginess of Lars von Trier’s Grace trilogy. There’s even a distinct stage echo in the sound design, which reverberates the actors’ dialogue.
Thus, Nightwatching ultimately becomes a highly esoteric affair – either for history or art scholars, or Greenaway junkies. For me it was a tough struggle, and I disappointed myself when I couldn’t really hold my attention to the film's complexities. Oh well, I never was a Greenaway fan, and this confirms I never will be. To each his own.
Nightwatching is available on DVD in Canada from Alliance Films.
Saturday, 25 February 2012
The Pursuit of Happiness
Starring: Michael Sarrazin, Barbara Hershey, E.G. Marshall, Arthur Hill
**
By Alan Bacchus
Not to be confused with the Will Smith tearjerker, director Robert Mulligan’s story of a liberal student whose personal morals are challenged when he’s sent to jail mixes some genuinely honest and thoughtful reflection on the clash of liberal and conservative values while confusing illogical and cartoonish idealism, which for 1970, might have been risky and enlightening, but now is just plain silly.
The late Michael Sarrazin plays a bleeding heart liberal college student, William Popper, who is conflicted by his conservative and well-off family background. When he gets into a car accident that kills a pedestrian he suddenly finds himself charged with vehicular manslaughter and is thrust into the American establishment of courts, lawyers and police. His journey takes him from innocent student to convict to escapee and by the end he is confronted with the choice of existing in an establishment in which he doesn’t believe or fleeing for some other utopia.
It’s unfortunate the film has to start with an excruciating Randy Newman song. In fact, Newman scores a number of montages throughout the film creating a tone of cartoonish cornball – a boneheaded creative decision from a normally astute Robert Mulligan. In particular, Mulligan crafts a ridiculous transition from William’s shocking sentence of prison time to a joyous, happy song, thus diffusing all the drama of the judge’s decision. We then watch William frolicking nude with his girlfriend in complete bliss, as if he’s unaware he’s about to enter the lowest form of humanity in our social foundation. Is this the same Robert Mulligan? The same celebrated director of honesty and integrity who made To Kill a Mockingbird?
Of course it’s 1970, and though it seemed like a liberal film at the time it is completely out to lunch and is Hollywood fantasy of the highest order. It’s a shame because the opening act sets up an interesting intellectual take on the difference between moral idealism and reality. Unfortunately, the film shamelessly separates the pack into liberals good and republicans bad.
The Pursuit of Happiness constantly rides a teeter-totter of honest realism and complete ineptitude. At one point William breaks out of jail with one week left in his sentence, an act completely out of character, not to mention illogical. Add to this scene another puke-inducing Randy Newman song and it’s more cartooning around. The prison life is ridiculous. Dramatized with quirky characters and fun personalities, it’s a summer camp-like fantasy prison.
Mulligan also completely destroys the suspense of William’s flight to Canada with barely even a roadblock in his way. Sarrazin is a fine actor and extremely likeable, but his character and his morals are never really challenged, especially when the consequences would be going back to that fun Shawshank prison.
The title refers to William’s central, though slightly abstract and non-specific, goal of disillusionment of the hippie culture with the steadfastly conservative competitive culture of American society. His pursuit for utopia involves escape from family, prison and ultimately his own country with a selfish egotism, which, unfortunately, is never acknowledged by the filmmakers.
If you keep reminding yourself that this film was made in 1970, likely shot in 1969, at the height of the anti-war, anti-government and anti-establishment peace-loving hippidom, The Pursuit of Happiness could be enjoyable. If you can’t suspend your disbelief that a main character who abandons his country and cowardly refuses to stand up for his personal morals in the face of a government ideal he despises is actually heroic, then this film is not for you.
The Pursuit of Happiness is branded under the ‘Martini Movies’ DVD label from Sony Pictures Home Entertainment.
Monday, 6 February 2012
Restless
Starring: Henry Hopper, Mia Wasikowska, Ryo Kase
**½
By Alan Bacchus
Annabelle and Enoch are a couple of social oddballs who find each other through their mutual fascination with death. In fact, they meet when Enoch crashes a funeral attended by Annie, and they later crash other people's funerals just for fun.
Their burgeoning relationship takes us from one whimsical romantic scene to the next, from etching chalk outlines of themselves on the pavement to attending a Halloween party dressed as a Japanese pilot and Geisha girl. Enoch also has an imaginary friend, Hiroshi, who is a downed kamikaze pilot from WWII. Annabelle, in addition to working with cancer-stricken children, reveals that she also has cancer and has three months to live. Yes, the theme here is death, which provides the only connective tissue between these overly idiosyncratic story elements.
But this is a Gus Van Sant film, and he rarely plays it safe, constantly testing himself and the audience and never resting on his laurels. Restless falls between his traditional melodramas, such as Good Will Hunting and Finding Forrester, and his aesthetically adventurous efforts like Paranoid Park, Last Days and Gerry.
While overly sappy in tone, including the oh-so-tender musical choices, Restless is also rigorously bizarre. Even the lead character's name, Enoch, is ridiculous, and the same goes for the anachronistic costumes and the staid tone in which he speaks with his kamikaze best friend. Annie also inexplicably draws water birds, writes plays about her own death and, like Enoch, dresses in impossibly quirky outfits fresh out of the Nouvelle Vague.
The best part of the release is the Blu-ray special features, which contain a completely silent version of the same film. During production, after every shot, Van Sant would do a silent take with the actors using their expressions to convey the drama of the scene without dialogue, or in post-production he would use dialogue insert cards like in old fashioned silent cinema (or The Artist). The final result isn't really watchable, but it's an innovative experiment that speaks to Van Sant's creativity and desire to show us something we've never seen before - brownie points and an extra half-star for that.
Restless is available on Blu-ray from Sony Pictures Home Entertainment.
Saturday, 12 November 2011
Cars 2
Featuring voice talents of: OwenWilson, Larry the Cable Guy, Michael Caine, Emily Mortimer, Eddie Izzard, John Turturro, Bonnie Hunt
**
By Alan Bacchus
The first Cars film wasn’t that great, yet after repeated viewings at the behest of my toddler I learned to appreciate the tender message about the feelings of obsolescence and being left behind in an increasingly fast-paced world. In the first film Lightning McQueen, the pre-eminent cocky race car driver, represented the exciting yet superficial life of celebrity and the aw shucks folks of Radiator Springs, a small dead town on Route 66, represented the value of growing roots and staying true to home.
Years later, after Cars arguably became one of Pixar’s most popular ancillary profit centres (after Toy Story), there arose a need for a sequel. In this film, John Lasseter (Pixar’s co-founder/creative leader and director of this film) expands the Cars world, creating an international spy story barely even related to the previous film.
The star of this picture is actually Tow Mater (Larry the Cable Guy), the rusted tow truck/country hick who loves to tag along with the fancy-pants McQueen. After seeing the revered Italian racer Francesco Bernoulli disrespect his buddy on TV, he challenges him to an all-star race of sorts with McQueen. This takes McQueen, reluctantly bringing along Mater, to far flung international locations like Japan and England.
Lasseter derives some typical fish-out-of-water hijinks exposing the country bumpkin to the extravagance of Tokyo. While gallivanting around town, Mater accidently gets recruited by a James Bond-type spy, Finn McMissile (Michael Caine), to help stop the maniacal world domination plot of a clandestine organization.
Racing is secondary to Mater’s stumbling around with the international British spies. If you enjoy Larry the Cable Guy's self-effacing white trash humour you’ll at least tolerate this film. Lightning McQueen is barely in it – same with those delightfully warm characters of Radiator Springs, including Sally and Mack.
Even the visuals leave much to be desired. Usually with each Pixar film we can see a noticeable step forward in technical achievement in computer animation. Cars 2 is a step backward, less impactful visually than any of the recent Pixar films, and even less so than the original movie. Most of the action is presented in an over-the-top hyper reality, whereas the original film was mostly photorealistic and contained in the physical geography of the Nascar racetrack, the desert highway or the small town of Radiator Springs. The opening action scene in this film, which takes place on a freighter barge, features overly produced gunfire and explosions. Most of this film is painted with this type of brush.
As such, Cars 2 feels like just a cartoon instead of a movie. In fact, it feels like simply an expanded version of the accompanying Pixar shorts, Cars Toons – Mater’s Tall Tales, bite-sized morsels of Cars-action featuring Mater and Lighting in fun adventures.
Cars 2 is the only across-the-board uniform failure from Pixar. Still, after 15 years and 12 movies, that’s a pretty good run.
Cars 2 is available on Blu-ray from Walt Disney Home Entertainment.
Thursday, 29 September 2011
Thor
Starring: Chris Hemsworth, Natalie Portman, Stellan Skargaard, Anthony Hopkins
**
By Alan Bacchus
I’m not a comic geek, but something tells me after watching this movie that Stan Lee never imagined this story on the big screen. Sure, Thor is part of the Avengers series, thus requiring this character to have a presence in the film, but the creative concept of this comic hero just doesn’t complement the stories of Iron Man, The Hulk or Captain America.
This movie fails because, unlike those other films, there’s very little connection to the human or Earth experience. Instead, most of this movie plays out in outer space, another dimension featuring real-life gods battling out a sibling rivalry. Yes, these are relatable human conflicts, including jealousy and the desire for acceptance from one’s father, but when these battles take place through interstellar portals with hand-to-hand combat fights on top of light bridges spanning different planets, it’s much too difficult to relate to anything that’s going on.
This is Stan Lee writing ambitiously on a different and almost limitless canvas. On film there are boundaries of production restraints, running times and the jigsaw puzzle being formed with five other movies. Thor simply doesn’t fit.
The film barely even needs Earth to exist, and most certainly it doesn't need any of its characters other than the teaser introduction showing a trio of scientists chasing down a storm system in the desert, which they think could open up a portal in space. Out of this wormhole lands someone we will learn is Thor, God of Thunder, moralized in human form on Earth. Flashing back we get to know Thor on his home planet of Asgard. He is the son of the revered king (another lazy performance from Tony Hopkins), who is dying and about to relinquish his throne to him. Sadly, Thor’s half-brother, Loki (Hiddleston), is left behind raging with internalized jealousy. When Loki learns that at birth he was actually stolen from Thor’s mortal enemies, the Frost Giants, he schemes to plot Thor’s downfall and claim the throne of Asgard.
After going against his father’s wishes, Thor attacks the Frost Giants, thus breaking their peace and re-sparking war. For this, Thor is banished through the aforementioned wormhole to Earth to live out his life as a mortal, and without his main weapon and source of power, his hammer. On Earth, he’s a fish out of water trying to fit into the ways of humans while speaking his formal godlike English tongue to a group of collegiate do-gooders. The key battle of conflict which emerges out of this mess of a plot is between the two brothers, vying for power and the almighty hammer.
There's actually very little action to even distract us. The main set piece occurs at the end when Thor battles a giant robot that can throw fire and blow things up real good. But there's so little creativity in the action, they're at best deleted scenes in a Michael Bay movie.
This is my second time seeing this film, and even on sparkling Blu-ray the dank cinematography doesn't hold up. The big screen, ironically, was even worse.
With The Avengers coming out next year and including an only slightly better Captain America as the final piece of the puzzle, there's much less cause for excitement for this series than when Iron Man was released.
Thor is available on Blu-Ray from Paramount Home Entertainment
Subscribe to:
Comments
(
Atom
)