From the Archives: Be Kind Rewind
Tags: 2001: A Space Odyssey, Be Kind Rewind, Bill Murray, Charlie Kaufman, Cloverfield, Danny Glover, Driving Miss Daisy, DVD, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Fats Waller, Ghostbusters, Jack Black, Mia Farrow, Michel Gondry, Mos Def, Rush Hour 2, VHS, Yasiin Bey
Another deep dive into the pre-Talking Movies archives finds what is the only Mos Def/Yasiin Bey movie I ever reviewed!
The trailer promises a wacky Jack Black comedy but this is really an exercise in whimsy with occasional moments of laugh out loud comedy. Maverick director Michel Gondry, after two films with the equally eccentric (and severely over-rated) screenwriter Charlie Kaufman, is now penning his own scripts. But his wafer-thin characterisation sees him relying far too heavily on the charisma of his leading men to carry the material. If you don't like Jack Black or Mos Def then avoid this film, or go, but thank heaven for Danny Glover who lends gravitas as Mr Fletcher. Fletcher is the Fats Waller worshipping owner of the titular video store, named after a Waller song and housed in the building where Fats was born, which is now so decrepit that adopted son Mike (Mos Def) might demolish it by slamming a door. The store survives because of the number of stubborn/deranged people in the neighbourhood who refuse to switch to DVD. Mike is left in charge while Mr Fletcher investigates whether switching to DVD is the only way of raising enough money for repairs before a council demolition deadline
Enter disaster in the shape of Jerry (Jack Black), Mike's best friend, who talks him into an attempt at sabotaging the local power plant (a sequence featuring a sublime visual gag) which leaves Jerry magnetised and thus all the store's videotapes erased. Mr Fletcher's best friend Ms Falewicz (Mia Farrow) demands Ghostbusters and Mike and Jerry, with no time to hunt down a replacement VHS copy, decide to make their own version with a camcorder, hilariously no-budget special effects, and Mike as Bill Murray…with Jerry as everyone else. This leads to crowds of new customers with requests for films that they want Mike, Jerry and leading lady (and drycleaner) Lorna to 'Swede' for them. Deeply demented versions of Driving Miss Daisy and Rush Hour 2 emerge and soon half the neighbourhood are joyously taking roles in the 'Sweded' films.
Be Kind Rewind is visually disappointing when set aside the quirkiness of Michel Gondry's music videos and his best film to date Eternal Sunshine. Indeed the highlight of the film comes when he stops being restrained and indulges in some of his trademark in-camera special effects, using his long held patent on 'how'd they do that?!' trickery. The dazzling and hilarious long take in which Jack Black and Mos Def re-enact scenes from classic movies (including 2001: A Space Odyssey) using insanely inventive no-budget special effects is itself shot in an insanely inventive low-budget way. (Somewhere a post-modernist just got his wings). Oddly enough, like Cloverfield, the usual sentimental cliches of movie logic do not apply in this universe. The unexpectedly realistic ending means that Be Kind Rewind works best as a love-note to film-making and audience participation rather than as pure comedy.
Fears: 2018
Tags: A Wrinkle in Time, Alden Ehrenreich, Alex Garland, Annihilation, Avengers: Infinity War, Benicio Del Toro, Cloverfield, Daniel Day-Lewis, Disney, Duncan Jones, Elizabeth Debicki, Emily Blunt, Francis Lawrence, Guillermo Del Toro, Han Solo, Holmes and Watson, Hush, Jean Grey, Jennifer Lawrence, John C Reilly, John F Donovan, Jon Snow, Joss Whedon, Kit Harington, LOST, Maisie Williams, Marvel, MCU, Michael Shannon, Mute, Natalie Portman, New Mutants, Nikita, Ocean's 8, Oprah Winfrey, Paul Thomas Anderson, Phantom Thread, Red Sparrow, Ron Howard, Sicario 2, Solo, Sophie Turner, Steven Soderbergh, Steven Spielberg, Terry Gilliam, The God Particle, The Man Who Killed Don Quixote, The Pentagon Papers, The Post, The Shape of Water, The Washington Post, Tom Hanks, Will Ferrell, X-Men: Dark Phoenix, Xavier Dolan
Hanks fights Nixon – yay!
But at wrong newspaper – boo!
Spielberg, what the hell?
Day-Lewis swansong
There Will Be Bodices (sic)
Somewhat overwrought?
Del Toro is back
Less Gothic, more Creature-y
and boo hiss Shannon
Red Sparrow
J-Law needs a hit
This will not be it. Too bad.
Ersatz Nikita.
Portman and a man
Odd that, but Garland 'writes well'
And directs again
Fox does X-horror
X-Men that is, obscure ones
They're affordable
Cloverfield in space
Looks on earth aghast
Exit Del Toro,
Enter Steven S DeKnight,
Thanks a bunch, China
Disney paid a lot
You must help them make it back
Han: the Wall St. Years
is really the damn cast list
Makes LOST seem restrained
Sicario 2
Blunt has not come back
Instead the wolf is let loose
Del Toro, that is
Cinema's great hug
Retconned as male privilege;
All girl cast fixes that
The Man Who Killed Don Quixote
Critics applaud, not
because the thing is done well
but because it's done
'Oprah for '20!'
It starts here! Diverse sci-fi.
Love this or get coat
Duncan Jones does 'Hush'
Berlin barman tracks girlfriend
His fists speak for him
It's X-3 remade,
with little context for Jean,
who cares? C.G.I!
John F Donovan
We have waited long,
Too long for Dolan anglais,
Now we fear for Snow
Will Ferrell bromance
Can't be worse than Downey/Law
A dumb comedy
War for the Planet of the Apes 3-D
Tags: Alfred Hitchcock, Andy Serkis, Blake Snyder, Bob Balaban, Caesar, Charlton Heston, Cloverfield, Colonel Kurtz, Dawn of the Planet of the Apes, Donkey Kong, Francis Ford Coppola, Frank Sinatra, Gary Oldman, Groucho Marx, Gustave Flaubert, Ingmar Bergman, Jimi Hendrix, Karin Konoval, Koba, Let Me In, Louis Armstrong, Manhattan, Marlon Brando, Matt Reeves, Moonrise Kingdom, Moses, Paul Cezanne, Planet of the Apes, Rise of the Planet of the Apes, Rod Serling, Rupert Wyatt, Save the Cat!, Steve Zahn, The Invasion, Toby Kebbell, War for the Planet of the Apes, Wes Anderson, Willie Mays, Woody Allen, Woody Harrelson
Andy Serkis, via motion capture, returns one last time for more monkey business as Caesar, the Moses of intelligent apes.
Caesar is in the woods, with his apes, and just wants to be left alone; to brood over his murder of rival Koba (Toby Kebbell), and raise his new young son. But not only have Koba's followers started to collaborate with the humans against Caesar in order to avenge his death, the humans have also become menacingly organised under a new leader, the Colonel (Woody Harrelson). An early bloody skirmish is followed by a night raid with the Colonel himself attempting to terminate Caesar's command, with extreme prejudice. Caesar abdicates his duties as leader, vowing revenge. While the apes set out for the promised land beyond the desert, Caesar, with trusted lieutenant Maurice the orangutan (Karin Konoval), and two gorilla bodyguards, sets out to assassinate the Colonel. But matters are complicated by a new mutation of the virus assailing humanity.
War for the Planet of the Apes would be more accurately titled Commando Raids for the Planet of the Apes. Indeed a large portion of the movie is Prison Break for the Planet of the Apes, cycling back to the pivotal sequence of 2011's Rise of the Planet of the Apes where super-intelligent Caesar was incarcerated with regular chimpanzees – because he chewed off a man's fingers for being rude. Blake Snyder's 'Save the Cat' does not advocate having your hero chew off a man's fingers for being rude to elicit audience sympathy, quite the opposite really. Yet we are expected to automatically root for Caesar through three films progressively less interested in human characters. If one could call the ciphers in this franchise human. This is surely the worst written trilogy this decade, and logically so; if an audience accepts ciphers, why bother sweating writing characters? If an audience accepts Gary Oldman's noble sacrifice to save humanity resulting in nothing, why bother even setting up protagonist and antagonist humans? Woody Harrelson's Colonel McCullough is the only articulate human, and even Harrelson can't excel with this straw man antagonist. Hard to credit this franchise was spawned by Rod Serling's mischievous screenplay.
Rupert Wyatt in Rise, and Matt Reeves in Dawn, both threw in striking sequences of directorial bravura to try and paper over the poor scripting. But here, there is nothing going on in that department, which is a tremendous surprise given that Reeves returns as director. Where are his visual trademarks – the lengthy tracking shots following chaos exploding into frame, the fixed-position sequences, the Hitchcockian visual suspense? This is all the more surprising given the unsubtle references to the visually extravagant Apocalypse Now: slogans daubed everywhere, a shaven-headed Colonel expounding on history, culture and morality, a mission to exterminate ('The only good Kong is a dead Kong'), Jimi Hendrix, and, just in case you didn't get it, 'Ape-pocalypse Now' graffiti. It's as if Reeves has just given up, going through the motions in a permanently 3-D darkened landscape of snow and concrete that renders things verily sepia-vision. Steve Zahn as a nebbish ape is a highlight, mostly because, when dressed akin to Bob Balaban's Moonrise Kingdom narrator, he appears to have wandered in from Wes Anderson's Planet of the Apes; the idea of which is more entertaining than this tedious movie, dragged out by its insistence on ape sign language.
The powerful and emotive finale is unintentionally hilarious when you realise just how literal the Caesar as Moses motif is being taken, but it's just one final plodding mis-step. Caesar blows up the Colonel's base and yet escapes the fiery blastwave because it is all-encompassing but apparently all to one side just to avoid enveloping him, Caesar's final confrontation with the Colonel sees him extend a character redeeming mercy that looks uncannily like the height of cruelty, and the new mutation of the virus, which reduces humans to mute amiable simpletons, leads us seamlessly into the world of the Charlton Heston classic. So, we are required to cheer for the devolution of the human race into mute amiable simpletons, and yet that isn't presented as a somewhat challenging proposition when even 2008's disastrous The Invasion noted the paradox of rooting for free will at the cost of world peace. To reference another 1979 film that's been in the air this summer Caesar's story involves us losing the ability to produce another Groucho Marx, Willie Mays, Louis Armstrong, Ingmar Bergman, Gustave Flaubert, Marlon Brando, Frank Sinatra, Paul Cezanne or even understand who they were or appreciate what they did. Hail, Caesar?
Dawn of the Planet of the Apes 3-D
Filed under: Talking Movies (Reviews) — Fergal Casey @ 11:08 am
Tags: 21 Jump Street, Ain't Them Bodies Saints, Alona Tal, Amanda Silver, Andy Serkis, Band of Brothers, Blue Eyes, Caesar, CGI, Cloverfield, Dawn of the Planet of the Apes, Doc Shaw, Firefly, Gary Oldman, GenSys, Jason Clarke, Karin Konoval, Keri Russell, Kirk Acevedo, Koba, Kodi Smith-McPhee, Let Me In, LOST, Mark Bomback, Matt Reeves, Michael Giacchino, Michael Seresin, Nick Thurston, Planet of the Apes, Rick Jaffa, Rise of the Planet of the Apes, Rod Serling, Supernatural, Terry Notary, The Black Donellys, The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug, The Lord of the Rings, The Two Towers, Toby Kebbel, Zero Dark Thirty
Andy Serkis (in motion capture) returns as evolved primate Caesar, but Cloverfield director Matt Reeves cannot rescue this iteration of the franchise from itself.
A chilling prologue shows the lights going out globally as the GenSys-created simian flu decimates humanity. A decade later Caesar (Andy Serkis) is in command of the apes in the Bay Area forest, flanked by scarred warrior Koba (Toby Kebbel), wise orangutan Maurice (Karin Konoval), and loyal Rocket (Terry Notary). There is tension between Caesar and his petulant son Blue Eyes (Nick Thurston), and everything falls apart when Rocket's son Ash (Doc Shaw) is shot by Carver (The Black Donnellys' Kirk Acevedo). Carver is part of a team led by Malcolm (Jason Clarke), which includes Malcolm's wife Ellie (Keri Russell) and son Alexander (Kodi Smith-McPhee). They are trying to restart a dam to provide power to San Francisco's human colony led by Dreyfus (Gary Oldman). The dam is Caesar's, and Dreyfus gives Malcolm three days to negotiate a peaceful solution…
Matt Reeves inserts some visual trademarks; a lengthy tracking shot in which chaos explodes into frame, a fixed-position sequence from a tank turret's POV, and a nicely vertiginous use of the Golden Gate bridge; but whereas Let Me In's slow-burning approach achieved agonising levels of suspense, this is just agonising – Reeves takes forever to unfurl a very simple and remarkably boring plot. Technically everything's competent: Michael Giacchino's music is effective if uncharacteristic (no sad tinkly piano!), and Michael Seresin's cinematography approaches that of Ain't Them Bodies Saints, and would be commendable if it likewise served a mood – but you can't help feel it's hiding creaking CGI. Ah, CGI… This is our defining modern paradox; an air of distancing unreality hangs over everything, but the great technology and preparation that created it is extolled as cutting-edge and therefore preferable to engaging verisimilitude achieved practically. The non-ending is as insulting as that of The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug, and a trend that needs to be denounced: it's like ending The Two Towers halfway through the battle of Helm's Deep.
Writing takes effort. 2011's reboot had a shocking poverty of characterisation but was a roaring success. Writing becomes much easier for Jaffa, Silver, and Bomback if they know the audience doesn't want characterisation… Blue Eyes is petulant. That's his one note. Then later he's cowardly. He's easily duped, because… and sides with Koba, because… then finds his steel, because… the script said so. Koba recalls Firefly's "Curse your sudden, but inevitable, betrayal!" He discovers Dreyfus' preparation for war and returns to warn Caesar, but loses his rag because he sees Caesar helping humans; except Caesar's not actually helping them when Koba arrives… But hey, in event of plot emergency break glass for jerk, right? Carver's rejoinder to Ellie's fact – "The virus was created by scientists I don't think the apes they were testing it on had much say in it" "Don't give me that hippie-dippy bullshit" – is comically awful, but it's easier to have jerks spark plot points rather than have Dreyfus and Malcolm's reasonable disagreement over how to achieve their aim be teased out; perhaps that's why Oldman is barely in this movie. By the climactic "What are you doing?" "Saving the human race!" gambit we've reached a truly low point where self-sacrifice that doesn't work (like Alona Tal in Supernatural) isn't tragic, but a running gag from 21 Jump Street.
Dawn of the Planet of the Apes is so poor it makes you nostalgic for the awful Rise of the Planet of the Apes. Whither Rod Serling's scripting intelligence?
Trailer Talk: Part II
Tags: A Most Wanted Man, Alfred Hitchcock, Andre Bovell, Andy Serkis, Anton Corbijn, Arcade Fire, Caesar, CGI, Cloverfield, Control, Dawn of the Planet of the Apes, Donald Sutherland, Frieda Pinto, Gary Oldman, James Franco, Jason Clarke, Jennifer Lawrence, John le Carre, Josh Hutcherson, Katniss Everdeen, Lantana, Let Me In, Let the Right One In, Matt Reeves, McConnaissance, Panem, Peeta, Philip Seymour Hoffman, President Snow, Rachel McAdams, Rise of the Planet of the Apes, Robin Wright, Rupert Wyatt, The American, The Hunger Games, Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, Willem Dafoe
In another entry in this occasional series I round up some trailers for films opening in the next few months.
2011's Rise of the Planet of the Apes was extremely successful commercially, but was a curiously mixed bag artistically. Rupert Wyatt's direction was quite brilliant in some Hitchcockian flourishes and well-staged action sequences. But the script seemed barely written; with James Franco and Frieda Pinto playing ciphers. Andy Serkis (in motion-capture) returns as talking evolved ape leader Caesar. The world's population having been devastated by the simian flu Caesar faces great hostility from belligerent human leader Gary Oldman, but an ally in Jason Clarke's family man willing to talk peaceful co-existence. But peaceful co-existence don't make for a high-stakes apocalyptic blockbuster! The focus of interest must be director Matt Reeves. Cloverfield combined spectacle with devastating emotional impact and his vampire remake Let Me In improved on the Scandinavian original. What will he fashion?
Dutch rock photographer Anton Corbijn's third film as director seems closer in tone and look to his sophomore effort The American than stark debut Control, as he directs a John Le Carre spy thriller set in Germany. The adaptation of Le Carre's novel comes from Lantana playwright and screenwriter Andrew Bovell which is almost as much an enticement as the stellar cast: Robin Wright, Rachel McAdams, Willem Dafoe, and Philip Seymour Hoffman's final lead performance. The second coming of Robin Wright really is a phenomenon as worthy of attention as the McConnaissance, and this looks like another compelling performance. The late Hoffman meanwhile seems on fine form as the German spook harassing McAdams' attorney: "I'm a lawyer" "You're a social worker for terrorists". Hopefully this will be better structured than the cavalier Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy.
Yep, the teaser trailer for what will probably be one of the three biggest films of 2014 manages to not mention Katniss Everdeen, show Jennifer Lawrence's face, or even acknowledge the existence of the previous two films. Intentionally, of course, as it's a Capitol propaganda film with Donald Sutherland's kindly old white-bearded President Snow sitting in a white room, flanked by Josh Hutcherson's kidnapped Peeta, telling the people of Panem how good the Capitol is to them, and expressing bemusement as to why they would ever rebel against him. Arcade Fire's chilling Soviet style Panem anthem has more or less for me become Donald Sutherland's personal theme tune at this point, and it suits these words: "But if you resist the system, you starve yourself. If you fight against it, it is you who will bleed…" #OnePanem
The Darkest Hour 3-D
Tags: 28 Days Later, Brendan Gleeson, Chris Gorak, Cloverfield, Colin Farrell, Dato Bakhtadze, Emile Hirsch, Gohas Kutsnko, Joel Kinnaman, Max Minghella, Olivia Thirlby, Rachael Taylor, The Darkest Hour 3-D, The Way Back, Timbu Bekmambetov, Veronika Vernadskaya, Wanted
It's the end of the world as we know it, and Emile's fine…
Emile Hirsch stars as a young tech entrepreneur in Chris Gorak's post-apocalyptic sci-fi drama set in Moscow, and produced by Wanted director Timur Bekmambetov. Hirsch and his business partner and lifelong friend Max Minghella arrive in Moscow to launch a Russian expansion of their social networking site Globe Trot. Only to find that they've been royally screwed by their dodgy business associate played by Alexander Skarsgaard lookalike Joel Kinnaman, who has the advantage over them of actually speaking Russian and has stolen their idea. Disconsolate they retreat to Zvezda nightclub where they meet two users of Globe Trot, Olivia Thirlby and Rachael Taylor. Kinnaman shows up for a celebration of his business deal, but a fight is halted by a sudden power-cut that heralds the descent of alien invaders. What resemble glowing jellyfish descend from the skies and then become invisible, before shredding any human who touches them with a blast of electromagnetic wave energy that reduces them to their molecular structure instantly.
The Darkest Hour recalls Cloverfield in its quick setting up of a small group of people before realistically killing them off in shocking and suspenseful ways as they grapple with an alien invasion they don't really comprehend. The script by Jon Spaiht was originally conceived for small town Ohio by Leslie Bohem & MT Ahern but became a far different beast when the chance to explore Russia opened up. Unfortunately the script lacks Drew Goddard's wit and so, unlike Cloverfield, you're not fully on board with rooting for these characters before they're thrown into peril. The peril though is very well handled. A sequence in a deserted Red Square is memorable both for its stunning location and its tension as our heroes try to escape detection by an enemy they cannot see. Gorak's love of 28 Days Later is clear from the joy he finds in filming scenes in a Moscow whose 14 million citizens have been reduced to a thin dust on the eerily empty streets.
These Americans and Australian are totally lost in an urban environment where even the street signs are in an alphabet they can't read. Gorak makes daytime a source of terror as only at night can the aliens be easily detected when they light up electric outlets. The science is explained by a nicely deranged Dato Bakhtadze as Sergei, riffing on Brendan Gleeson's role in 28 Days Later. Indeed the stars are comprehensively outshone by their support. Veronika Vernadskaya as Vika has some wonderful moments as the resolute teenage survivor. Gohas Kutsnko as Matveo is magnificent as a Russian soldier who has figured out to how to defeat the aliens and plans a Leningrad style resistance; he would rather die with Moscow at his back than survive in exile. This recalls Colin Farrell's character in The Way Back, but with Bekmambetov advising we can apparently now regard this as a real Russian trait.
The ending stresses the note of hope too much, when the world's population could now probably live comfortably in North London, but this is a solid piece of work.
Troll Hunter
Tags: Andre Ovredal, Cloverfield, Dean Winchester, Dexter, Edvard Grieg, Finn Haugan, Ghostfacers!, Glenn Erland Tosterud, Hans Morten Hansen, Henrik Ibsen, Johanna Morck, Jotnars, Jurassic Park, Otto Jespersen, Peer Gynt, Richard Dawkins, Ringelfinch, Sam Winchester, Supernatural, The Hall of the Mountain King, Tomas Alf Larsen, Tosserlads, Troll Hunter, Troll Security Service, Trolljegeren, Urmilla Berg-Domaas, UV, Volda College
Since the 1970s there has been only one man in all Norway who dares to fight in the Hall of the Mountain King, who possesses the strength and skill to defeat the Tosserlads and Jotnars. He is Hans – the Troll Hunter!
Three kids from Volda College try to make a documentary about a series of unusual bear deaths but things get wildly out of hand when they try to surreptitiously film a man they suspect of being a bear-poacher… There's a healthy feel of Cloverfield in how one actor is unseen for most of the 'found footage' as he's stuck behind the camera filming events, and how despite nightmarish encounters the need to 'document' overcomes the need to survive. There's also a solid three act structure to be retrospectively found in the ramshackle series of events, with an amazingly logical maguffin unveiled at the end. The moment when the students are surprised by the panicked 'poacher' running past them shouting "Troll!" is reminiscent of the episode of Supernatural where the Winchester brothers explode into the home-movies of amateur occultists filming their own terrible pilot Ghostfacers! And just as the Winchesters took the Ghostfacers (!) under their wing to fight scary monsters, Hans allows the students a peek behind the curtain.
Be forewarned that first glimpse of a troll is a bit disappointing after some truly wonderful sound effects, but as the film proceeds the trolls become scary because of how large and stupidly vicious they are. The battle with an aggressive Ringelfinch on a bridge is a supremely scary encounter, complete with a Jurassic Park homage as the troll-hunter uses a goat for bait to the dismay of the vegetarian boom-operator. Otto Jespersen is wonderful as Hans, equally battle-weary and stoically efficient. The scene-stealing character though is Finn Haugan, the hapless bureaucrat (with a curiously Irish sounding name) heading the Troll Security Service whose unenviable job is covering up Hans' activity, with the help of extremely dodgy Polish bear-hunters (who cause more problems than they solve) and nonsensical press releases.
Writer/director Andre Ovredal make wonderful use of pseudo-science in explaining how trolls turn to stone when exposed to sunlight or the rig of UV bulbs our hero keeps on top of his car and is quite remarkably adept at mixing comedy and horror. A wonderful running gag utilising the legend of Trolls being able to smell the blood of a Christian man becomes intensely suspenseful, even as it satirically skewers the tyranny of Dawkins and his ilk in removing religion from 'liberal' public discourse. The finale has an incredible sense of peril as our heroes attack the 200 ft giant Jotnar with a jeep as robust against this creature as the mosquito in the opening credits is against Dexter.
Troll Hunter isn't on wide release but its mordant horror deserves the widest possible audience.
2011: Hopes
Tags: Abbie Cornish, Adventureland, Andrea Riseborough, Andrew Garfield, Anthony Hopkins, Ariel, Batman, Bill Condon, Blake Lively, Breaking Dawn, Brian Nelson, Brighton Rock, Broadway, Caliban, Captain America, Captain America: The First Avenger, Carey Mulligan, Carol Ferris, CGI, Chris Evans, Chris Hemsworth, Christopher Nolan, Cloverfield, Cloverfield: Part II, Control, Crank, David Slade, DC, Eclipse, Edgar Wright, Fassbendering, Geoff Johns, Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance, Gods & Monsters, Graham Greene, Green Lantern, Greg Mottola, Guillermo Del Toro, Hal Jordan, Helen Mirren, Hugo Weaving, Hurt, Ian Curtis, Ian McKellen, Indiana Jones 4, Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, Iron Man 3, James McAvoy, Jeph Loeb, JJ Abrams, Joe Johnston, Johnny Cash, Jonah Hex, Julie Taymor, Kazuo Ishiguro, Keira Knightley, Kenneth Branagh, Kristen Wiig, Loki, Magneto, Mark Millar, Mark Romanek, Mark Strong, Marvel, Marvel Studios, Matthew Vaughn, Michael Fassbender, Michael Shannon, My Son, Natalie Portman, Nazis, Never Let Me Go, New Moon, Nick Frost, Nicolas Cage, Parallax, Paul, Peter Jackson, PG-13, Pinkie, Professor X, Prospera, Prospero, Rowan Joffe, Russell Brand, Ryan Reynolds, Sam Riley, Scott Pilgrim Vs the World, Seth Rogen, Simon Pegg, Sinestro, Steven Spielberg, Suckerpunch, Super 8, Superman, Terence Rattigan, The Avengers, The Bad Lieutenant, The Boulting Brothers, The Losers, The Red Skull, The Tempest, The War Horse, Thor, Tintin, Trinculo, Vanessa Hudgens, Werner Herzog, What Have Ye Done?, William Shakespeare, X-Men: First Class, Zack Snyder
In Darkest Night
Ryan Reynolds is Green Lantern, Blake Lively is love interest Carol Ferris, and Mark Strong is renegade alien lantern Sinestro in the biggest gamble of the year. Green Lantern's ring which allows him to physically project anything he can imagine, but which can't handle the colour yellow because of the evil Parallax, is the most far-out of the major DC characters; but in the right hands (see the recent resurgence of the comics title by Geoff Johns) he can be majestic. If this movie works it opens up the whole DC Universe for cinematic imaginings. If it fails then Nolan's Batman swansong and Snyder's Superman will be the end of DC on film for another decade…
A Knife-Edge
Talking of gambles what about Suckerpunch: can Zack Snyder handle an all-female cast and a PG-13 rating after the flop of his animated movie? The answers provided by his Del Toro like escapade set in a 1950s mental hospital where Vanessa Hudgens and Abbie Cornish escape into a fantasy universe to fight a never-ending war will give hints as to how he'll handle Lois Lane and the challenge of resurrecting Superman's cinematic fortunes. Breaking Dawn sees Bill Condon, director of Gods & Monsters, take on the final Twilight book in two movies. Given that the book sounds the epitome of unfilmable on the grounds of utter insanity, it's a gamble to split it in two when it may make New Moon look competent. On the other hand he may take the Slade/Nelson route of Eclipse and simply play the romance as stark nonsense and be as nasty as he can with what little time for horror is left him after he's shot Jacob shirtless 20 times. Paul should be a lock: it's a comedy with Simon Pegg and Nick Frost. However, they're not working with Edgar Wright, co-writer and director of their other two movies, but with Greg Mottola, writer/director of Adventureland, and this film was meant to be released last year. Kristen Wiig has a supporting role created for her and Seth Rogen voices the titular slobbish alien with whom Pegg & Frost's archetypal nerds have daft adventures, but will this be a mish-mash of styles?
A Grand Madness
Werner Herzog's My Son, My Son, What Have Ye Done? has had immense success on the festival circuit and seems to confirm that Bad Lieutenant was no one-of, he really has got his feature mojo back. Michael Shannon stars in a very loose version of a true-life murder case which saw reality and fiction tragically become fatally confused for a young actor appearing in a Greek tragedy. The Tempest sees Julie Taymor takes a break from injuring actors on Broadway to helm another Shakespeare movie. Her last film Across the Universe was misfiring but inspired when it worked, expect something of the same from this. Helen Mirren is Prospera, while Russell Brand's obvious love of language should see him Fassbender his way through his jester role.
In England's Green and Pleasant Land
February sees the release of two adaptations of acclaimed English novels. Brighton Rock sees Sam Riley, exceptional as Ian Curtis in 2007's Control, take on the iconic role of the psychotic gangster Pinkie in an adaptation of Graham Greene's 1938 novel. This remake updates the action to the 1960s and mods v rockers, with Helen Mirren as the avenging Fury pursuing Pinkie for murdering an innocent man, and rising star Andrea Riseborough as Pinkie's naive girlfriend. Greene and Terence Rattigan co-wrote the script for the superb Boulting Brothers' 1947 film, so this version has to live up to the high-water mark of British film noir. Meanwhile Never Let Me Go sees one of the most acclaimed novels of the Zeros get a film treatment from the director of Johnny Cash's Hurt video. Can Mark Romanek find a visual way to render Kazuo Ishiguro's dreamy first-person narration of the slow realisation by a group of elite public-school pupils of the sinister purpose of their isolated education? The cast; Keira Knightley, Andrew Garfield, and Carey Mulligan; represents the cream of young English talent, but replicating the impact of the novel will be difficult.
Empire of the Spielberg
Super 8. I gather it's about aliens, and monsters, in fact probably alien monsters. In fact really it's probably Cloverfield: Part II but with Abrams writing and directing instead of producing. Spielberg is producing so it's safe to say this will be exciting. Whatever it's about. It's out in August. The War Horse sees Spielberg breaks his silence after Indy 4 with an adaptation of West End hit which follows a young boy's journey into the hell of World War I in an attempt to rescue his beloved horse from being used to drag provisions to the front. Meanwhile with Tintin we get an answer to the question does Peter Jackson still have his directorial mojo? His version of the beloved famous Belgian comic-book has a lot to live up to, not least the uber-faithful TV cartoon adaptations. And can the problem of dead eyes in photo realistic motion capture CGI finally be solved?
The House of M: Part I
Kenneth Branagh's directorial resurgence sees him helm Thor, his first comic-book blockbuster. Branagh will no doubt coax great performances from Anthony Hopkins and Natalie Portman, but does Chris Hemsworth have the charisma as well as the physique to pull off a Norse God banished to Earth just as Loki decides to invade it? This is a pivotal gamble by Marvel's in-house studio. If this flops, it puts The Avengers and Iron Man 3 in major difficulties, and it is a worry. Captain America had fantastic storylines in acclaimed comics by Mark Millar and Jeph Loeb in the last decade, but Thor really has no great canonical tale that cries out to be told. Not that those Loeb/Millar ideas will get in the way of a (How I Became) Insert Hero Name approach to the Cap'n. Chris Evans, fresh from dazzling comedic turns in Scott Pilgrim and The Losers, takes on the title role in Captain America: The First Avenger. He will be a likeable hero but it's almost certain that Hugo Weaving will steal proceedings as Nazi villain The Red Skull. Joe Johnston's Indiana Jones background should probably guarantee amusing hi-jinks in this 1940s set blockbuster.
The House of M: Part II
Other studios, content to build one franchise at a time around Marvel characters, will unleash two very different comic-book blockbusters. Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance sees the lunatics behind the Crank films finally get their hands on a blockbuster after their script for Jonah Hex was rewritten to make it vaguely 'normal'. The prospect of Nicolas Cage, fresh from his brush with Herzog, being encouraged to again find his inner madman while the two writers/directors shoot action sequences from roller-skates besides his bike is an awesome one. Matthew Vaughn meanwhile helms X-Men: First Class starring James McAvoy as the young Professor X and Talking Movies' hero Michael Fassbender as the young Magneto. This prequel charts the early days of their friendship and the establishment of Xavier's Academy, before (according to Mark Millar) a disagreement led to Magneto putting Xavier in a wheelchair. The prospect of Fassbender doing his best Ian McKellen impersonation gives one pause for joy.
Tags: (500) Days of Summer, 9/11, A Single Man, Aaron Sorkin, Abel Ferrara, Aliens, Atticus Ross, Avatar, Batman, Big Daddy, Black Widow, CGI, Chloe Grace Moretz, Christopher Isherwood, Christopher Nolan, Cloverfield, Cobb, Colin Firth, David Fincher, Don Cheadle, Drew Barrymore, Edgar Wright, Ellen Page, Fight Club, Gwyneth Paltrow, Hit-Girl, Hometree, Hot Fuzz, Inception, Iron Man 2, James Cameron, Kick-Ass, Klaus Kinski, Kodi Smith-McPhee, Leonardo DiCaprio, Let Me In, Let the Right One In, Mark Millar, Mark Strong, Matt Reeves, Matthew Vaughn, Michael Cera, Mickey Rourke, Nick Fury, Nicolas Cage, Pepper Potts, PG-13, Ramona Flowers, Robert Downey Jr, Sam Rockwell, Sam Worthington, Scott Pilgrim, Scott Pilgrim Vs the World, Texas Roller Derby, The Bad Lieutenant, The Social Network, Tom Ford, Tony Stark, Trent Reznor, Tyler Durden, UCL, University College London, Werner Herzog, Whip It!
(10) Whip It!
Drew Barrymore's sports comedy-drama about Ellen Page's smart high-school girl rebelling against her conservative mother's ideal of beauty pageants by joining the riotous Texas Roller Derby is an awful lot of fun. Filled with sparkling turns from a female comedic ensemble, and some well-choreographed and bone-crunching stunts, the creaking of the plot mechanics does become a bit audible in the second act, but the third act is pleasingly subversive on two counts.
(9) Avatar
This is closer to the Cameron of Aliens than we could have hoped for. The script appears to have been generated by the same computers as the impressive bespoke special effects but, Worthington aside, the actors sell it well, aided by the fact that Cameron remains a master of emotionally manipulative action sequences; with the 9/11 style destruction of Hometree genuinely upsetting while the final half-hour is pulse-poundingly emotive and well orchestrated.
(8) Kick-Ass
A little gem of ultraviolent comic-book capers from the imagination of Mark Millar this faithfully follows the origin myth template but without PG-13 imposed morality; Batman would be feared by criminals because he acted like Big Daddy, gangsters would react like Mark Strong's exasperated Don. Matthew Vaughn's script improves on its source material in mining an unexpectedly deep vein of emotional pathos in the Big Daddy /Hit-Girl relationship.
(7) Let Me In
Matt Reeves follows Cloverfield with an incredible stylistic switch but retains his stark vision. This intimate horror features a number of nail-biting suspense sequences and improves on the Swedish version by making Abby scarier and more manipulative, with Owen more complicit, and by re-instating moral horror into this coming-of-age story. Reeves upsets everything we know about Americanisation by taking an over-rated film and making it bleaker and more affecting.
(6) Iron Man 2
A fine and very fun film with excellent cleverly counterpointed performances from Downey, Cheadle, Rourke and Rockwell as a consulting villain and a real villain, and a responsible hero and a drunken hero. The first act moves at an insane pace verbally and is full of wonderful comedic touches. So what if Nick Fury solves the plot for Tony Stark, my gripe is with the inconsistent relationship between Pepper and the poorly used Black Widow and the déjà-vu action finale.
(5) Scott Pilgrim Vs the World
The comedy of the year is deliriously nonsensical, filled with joyous touches, played perfectly by the youthful ensemble (aided by insane cameos), and is chockfull of superb visual gags. It is, like Wright's Hot Fuzz, a bit too long but this is as crazy and original as big studio films get and, like (500) Days of Summer , characters break-up not because of dastardly secrets but because they're as fickle as Ramona with men or as shallow/cruel as Scott dumping Knives after two-timing her.
(3) The Bad Lieutenant
Werner Herzog's ecstatic madness finally returns to his dramatic features in an examination of the bliss of evil. He drags a barnstorming performance worthy of Klaus Kinksi out of Nicolas Cage and plasters the insanity of his recent documentaries onto what is structurally a solid police procedural, before you add iguanas and drugs, and nonsense, lots of nonsense. This black comedy towers above Ferrara's portentous original aided by a surprisingly reflective ending.
(3) A Single Man
Colin Firth's stunning performance is only one of many dazzling elements in a heart-breaking film punctuated by outstanding moments of black comedy and shot with an amazing eye for style, sartorial and visual. Director and co-writer Ford has managed to transform a forgotten Christopher Isherwood novel into a compassionate meditation on human relationships and the crushing nature of bereavement and grief which is also sprinkled with hilarious lines.
(2) The Social Network
The founding of Facebook was played out with amazing scenes, lines, and ideas and gripped like a vice with a constant unnerving tension surrounding the actions of central villain Mark. There were echoes of Fincher past in Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross' rumbling beats, especially underneath Sean's first meeting with Mark and Eduardo, and Sean was in a way the Tyler of this tale, whose rejection leaves no happy ending. Sorkin's script has witty repartee but its emotionally raw opening scene sets the movie's tone. Favouring Fincher's pessimism over Sorkin's optimism makes this an uneasy masterpiece.
(1) Inception
Nolan wins not just for the tremendous redemptive emotional kick the whole movie builds to, when you read the film on its most superficial level where it's too neat structurally for its own good, but because once you look deeper you realise that this is a puzzle piece worthy of a UCL English graduate; it supports many contradictory readings, none of them definitive. See a loose thread and pull and the garment does not unravel, it changes pattern and remains coherent. 'Ellen Page's character is too obviously an expositional device'. Yes, unless her insistence on talking through the plot with DiCaprio's character is because she's a therapist hired by the rest of the team to exorcise Mal from his memory… This is a blockbuster rubik's cube of a caper movie combined with sci-fi thriller, which exploits the ability give physical reality to subconscious emotional scars, in order to dazzle both eyes and mind with spectacle, ideas, and meaty drama.
Let the Right Script In
Tags: CGI, Cloverfield, Elias Koteas, John Ajvide Lindqvist, Let Me In, Let the Right One In, Let the Right Script In, LOST, Matt Reeves, Michael Giacchino, New Mexico, No County for Old Men, Pac-Man, Rear Window, Richard Jenkins, Tommy Lee Jones, Twilight, Two-Face
If you haven't seen Let the Right One In now would be a good time to stop reading as I'm about to do a spoiler-tastic comparison between it and the American version Let Me In.
I was whelmed last year by Let the Right One In, not least because I went to it many weeks after its release having read nothing but ridiculous praise for it. Most of those reviews were littered with condemnations of Twilight mixed in with praises of how this movie was Art, unlike, say, Twilight. The trouble was that many of these hyperbolic notices had confused glacial pacing with artistic substance, and vacuous ambiguity with intellectual integrity. I was thus intrigued when I heard Cloverfield director Matt Reeves was to write/direct an American version. Could he fix the problems? The answer is yes, apart from the pacing. It turns out that glacial pacing is structurally embedded because of the way Lindqvist unfurls his story. It's at this point I should state that I still haven't read the book so I'm basing my assumption that this is Lindqvist's modus operandi on his screenplay adaptation for the Swedish version. Reeves' version is thus slow-paced but considerably better at generating suspense, with one scene where the detective hunts Abby becoming unbearably tense, courtesy of a violin crescendo by LOST composer Michael Giacchino.
Reeves' opening disrupts clichés about Hollywood simplification by upending the straightforward chronology of the Swedish version in favour of a film-noir style opening which renders the first half of the film an extended flashback. His sustained long-shot of an ambulance and cop-cars roaring down a snowy road in New Mexico leads to interior shots of an unseen criminal with acid burns being taken to hospital where Elias Koteas' detective tries to interrogate him. The manhunt by this cop is one of the huge changes of this version and it injects considerable momentum. Also interesting is how the Familiar's melted face is never seen during this lengthy pre-credits opening sequence. Reeves replaces utter ambiguity with clarity for his own purposes, but substitutes an off-focus camera style when it's needed; for instance Owen's isolation is rendered by having his mother's face never being glimpsed while his father is a mere voice on the phone. I criticised the Swedish film for having utterly pointless scenes. One of the most epically purposeless was the scene where the boy visits his father and his father's friend/boyfriend, here replaced by a short to the point phone-call. Reeves also dispatches with an entire sub-plot with the female neighbour who accidentally gets turned by Abby. That awful padding led to unintentionally hilarious scenes as she burst into flames in the hospital when a nurse opened the curtain, after being attacked by preposterously bad CGI cats. Reeves simply has her attacked by Abby and then kills her in the hospital scene after a gory moment that stifles any laughter at her subsequent conflagration.
Reeves instead uses CGI in long-shots to make Abby super-agile in her vampiric attacks, which, alongside close-ups of her demonic veined face, renders her far scarier in this version. He also inserts a new highly realistic scene where Owen takes Abby out to play Pac-Man at the local arcade and Abby takes some of his favourite sweets, which she knows will make her sick, rather than hurt his feelings. This appears cute on the surface but because Reeves has made Abby more sinister we're suspicious and so pick up on the ambiguity of her actions, which is hammered home in the scene where she starts bleeding after Owen forces her to enter his flat uninvited. In the Swedish version it seems like this is a surprise to her but here Abby states that she knew it would happen, but also knew that Owen would belatedly invite her in. Once again Abby is being sweet but there's a certain level of a vampire manipulating a potential Familiar underneath the surface interpretation.
Reeves has Abby's Familiar kill by breaking into cars and hiding in the back-seat before garrotting the driver and harvesting his blood. This is a more realistic and sustainable m.o. than the varied methods employed in the Swedish version and leads to the Familiar bungling a harvest, not because of random passers-by intruding on an absurd crime scene, but because he's getting sloppy. He muses to Abby, as only the inimitably subdued Richard Jenkins can do to such involving effect, that he's tired of this life so maybe subconsciously he wants to get caught. This realism extends to his self-inflicted injuries. The Swedish version presented a prosthetics Two-Face where Reeves opts for a simple melted off nose, lips and tongue, so that "I'm sorry Abby" are his last scrawled words. This is less of a horror moment, but it's far sadder. It also of course means Abby has known she might need a new Familiar…
Abby explicitly tells Owen that the Familiar was not her father, removing the ambiguity of the Swedish version which traded on the fake pathos of a father killing for his cursed daughter. Reeves then places Owen in Abby's room when the detective bursts into it, and has Owen save Abby from the cop, before closing the door as she feeds on him. The iconic image of the original was the splash of blood on that white door, but here the huge splash of blood on the door isn't just Hollywood excess it's a signal that the iconic image of this version is about to come; the blood-soaked Abby emerging from the room to hug Owen from behind for saving her; and in its own way it's an even more stark image. Koteas' detective is almost a variant on Tommy Lee Jones' Sheriff in No Country for Old Men, emotionally troubled by vicious murders, and, here, ultimately fatally betrayed by a new amorality. The fact that an early nod to Rear Window makes all Abby's victims known to Owen personally only increases his complicity. He embraces the role of the Familiar, even after seeing a photograph which confirms that Richard Jenkins' character has wasted 50 years of his life on Abby after meeting her at the same age as Owen. The Swedish version achieved a ridiculously happy ending by glossing over the doomed fate he embraces in becoming her Familiar. Reeves by contrast makes that same ending bleaker by having emphasised throughout that Owen is in effect selling his soul. Re-instating moral horror into this sinister coming-of-age story reverses the clichés of Hollywood's addiction to upbeat conclusions.
Reeves upsets everything we know about Americanisation by taking an over-rated film and making it bleaker and more emotionally affecting. A true re-imagining.