I haven’t been to the theaters in what feels like forever. However, I have seen quite a few movies on the DVD machine lately. Some of these may have slipped by you unnoticed, or left you on the fence regarding whether they were worthwhile. Allow me to help.
An Education
If you haven’t rented this you need too. It’s whip smart, hilarious and touching. The incomparable Nick Hornby has written the smartest script I’ve seen on screen in ages and Carey Mulligan absolutely shines. A true cinematic gem. Rent. Now.
Fantastic Mr. Fox
Never been the biggest fan of Wes Anderson’s self-referential irony. His films always seem so self-satisfied. Working from a Roald Dahl book always helps, but I found this to be immensely entertaining. I laughed heartily from beginning to end. Visually delightful with superb voice work. I was thoroughly charmed by this film. Enormously recommended.
Green Zone
Matt Damon and Paul Greengrass team up again for the action and it’s not as Bourne as you’d think. Exciting and tense, it’s better than I expected based on the buzz about the film. It’s dogmatic in its simplistic take on Middle Eastern politics and the outcome is a little anti-climatic, but it’s still a very solid action flick worth a rental.
Edge of Darkness
Mel may be insane, but I’ve always liked his work, both behind and in front of the camera. This isn’t his best thought. He’s good in the prototypical “Mel as a wronged man on a mission of violent retribution” role but the movie acts as if it has big secrets to spill but every reveal and twist can be seen from five miles out. Mediocre, revenge flick with solid direction at best. Danny Huston and Ray Winstone (each with their trademark imposing physicality’s) are wasted here too.
Hot Tub Time Machine
Meh. Hilarious first 30 minutes then it just runs out of bubbles (pardon the pun). The characters begin to grate and the 80’s references begin to feel shoe-horned in. Unnecessarily crude too. There is a fabulous bit of stunt casting, paired with a hysterical running joke, involving Cripsin “George Mcfly” Clover. It’s almost worth it for the Glover scenes but just watch The Hangover again to see this type of story done much better.
The Wolfman
I’m a sucker for old timey goth-monster-horror flicks but the plodding start had me reaching for the off switch. Be patient though. The film soon opens up and is actually quite a bit of fun (the campy climatic fight is a treat) and amusingly gory. The real reason to watch this is the art direction though; it has a superb smoky-velvety late 1800’s London gothic atmosphere, which suits Emily Blunt splendidly. I want to watch it again, sounded turned down, with a mix of Type O Negative, Pornography-era Cure, and Paradise Lost playing in the background. Recommended if you can get through the first 30 minutes or so. Cool end title sequence to boot.
50 Dead Men Walking
I promised a full-length on this previously, but let this suffice: It’s a slick (in the best way possible) action thriller involving The Troubles. The British Intelligence recruits a nicely unglamorous Jim Sturgess to do dangerous double agent duty inside the IRA; a strangely be-wigged Ben Kingsley is his handler. Based on a true story it’s gripping and entertaining. A nice companion piece to Hunger because it obviously sympathizes with the British and shows some of the harsher realities of life inside the IRA. Sturgess and Kingsley’s development of a father-son like bond sounds a completely wrong note however. It’s still very recommended.
The Twilight Saga: Eclipse
I know. I know. I know. What do you care, you already know if you’re going see this or not, right? Anyway, it’s not any better than New Moon was, but it’s nice that they finally got a director who can do a solid action scene. Some cool fights. Repetitive plot conflicts are seriously tedious. Apparently the beloved Jacob (Taylor Lautner) is a manipulative stalker who should be red flagged as a potential date rape perp. Bryce Dallas Howard falls flat on her face, big miscast. Kristen Stewart is getting better but the real star of this series is the effortless Billy Burke as her dad. Not terrible but not …oh whatever.
If viewing in a reader, click through to see the video from MovieClips.com
(Warning, possible spoilers)
Before I say anything about Inception, you should know that I recommend going into this movie completely blind, with as little expectation as you can, so that you can get the full experience and be able to lose yourself completely in the world that Christopher Nolan (Dark Knight, Memento, The Prestige) created. I recommend you watch the movie, preferably in IMAX (as portions were shot in 65mm, standard is 35mm), before you read this review. You will not be disappointed, I consider this the best movie of the year. There will almost definitely be spoilers below.
There is a movement in the Film World (as well as the Art World) called Post-Modernism. Inception is a textbook example of this movement. It’s more subtle than say, a Woody Allen or a Charlie Kaufman movie, but it is definitely Post-Modern. Any Post-Modern film can be characterized by a “self-referential stance” that cues the spectator “to read the narrative as something other than a sequential development toward some transcendent truth.” (Schatz, Thomas. “Annie Hall and the Issue of Modernism.” Literature/Film Quarterly X (1982): 180-187.) In other words, the film will constantly provide clues to cue the spectator to the fact that many of the subjects within the movie address the movie itself as well. This is often done to pull the viewer out of the movie at specific points in order to allow the viewer to question or analyze the subject at hand. The more the viewer realizes that he/she is watching a movie, without leaving the movie world, the more he/she is able to control the viewing experience and bring something valuable out of it.
When training Ariadne (Ellen Page) in the clip above, Cobb (Leonardo DiCaprio) states that we never really remember the beginning of a dream, that we always end up right in the middle of what’s going on. Nolan does the same thing with Inception, he throws us right into the middle of a two layer dream, instantly transporting us into his world, only allowing us to question it at specific points. Nolan is the architect. His goal is to plant a single idea in each viewer’s mind, that they will take with them upon leaving his world.
Ariadne’s training provides all the clues to decoding this world. In it, we are told that only subtle familiarities are allowed when constructing a dream. Too many or too much, will cause the dreamer to realize he or she is dreaming. Inception is littered with these subtle familiarities. The cast is dotted with actors and actresses Nolan has worked with before (Michael Caine, Cilian Murphy, Ken Watanabe). The music used to “kick” the dreamers out of their dream state is “Non je ne Regrette Rien” by Edith Piaf, who Marion Cotillard, Mal in the movie, played in La Vie en Rose. Even the suspenseful “Braaaahm” sound played before each “kick” is just a slowed down version of that song. This is all on purpose. It serves to make the film world familiar to us without taking us out of the movie altogether.
In the training, Cobb also states that the architect must be sure not to break too many laws of physics in the dream world as that too will make the dreamer aware of the dream and in turn, pull him/her out of the dream world. Nolan applied this to his world by limiting the amount of CGI used in the film. A large majority of the effects in the film were done in-camera by the amazing Wally Pfister, also a familiar from his past work. The train that came barreling down the road was simply an 18-wheeler with a train facade. The elevator scenes were done by constructing a horizontal elevator shaft in an old airship hangar. The bar in Robert Fischer’s (Cillian Murphy) 2nd dream level was built on a hydraulic lift, allowing it to be raised up to 30 degrees. The hallway where Arthur (Joseph Gordon-Leavitt) fights a security guard, jumping from wall to ceiling to floor and back was an elaborate set built to rotate a full 360 degrees. No wires were used in that scene, the actors had to just time their jumps with the rotation of the set. (American Cinematographer, Journal of Motion Imaging, July 2010) All of this was done to make the viewer aware he/she is watching a movie, without pulling him/her completely out of that world.
The acting is superb. Each actor is at the top of his/her game. Even Leonardo DiCaprio, who I have been known to despise in other films, is completely convincing as a beaten-down Dream Architect. The writing, editing, and music combine perfectly to envelop the viewer in Nolan’s worlds. The very base of editing is the juxtaposition of two images used to convey an emotion not present in those images. Nolan uses this simplest form of editing to create an even more heightened suspense as the van careens towards the river in slow motion. Image after image is flashed before the viewer’s eyes of level after level of the character’s dreams. It was enough to practically give my wife an ulcer. The 10 years Nolan spent writing this movie shows completely in his execution. The world of Inception is real as far as my mind’s concerned.
So what’s the point? Post-Modernism is a tool used to bring more awareness to an artist’s central theme. In this case, I believe Nolan is attempting to bring awareness to the theme of his complete body of work. By using elements from previous films and from Hollywood in general, Nolan is constructing a world that will bring the viewer to an awareness of this central theme. It is embodied in the final words of Mal, “You’re waiting for a train; a train that will take you far away. You know where you hope this train will take you, but you can’t be sure. Yet it doesn’t matter – because we’ll be together.” Relationships matter most to Nolan. If you look at his past body of work, you will find this to be the common thread between them all. Relationships are the most valuable part of life. Nolan is an Auteur in the truest sense of the word.
The movie ends with a bit of uncertainty. Was it all a dream, or did Cobb actually return to reality? I believe that Nolan’s stance is that it doesn’t matter, because he’s together, with his kids. As the credits roll through and the “Braaaahm” sound intensifies, “Non je ne Regrette Rien” plays one final time, cuing the viewer to the fact that the “kick” is coming and he/she will soon be returned to reality, left to ponder the meaning of this dream world they just experienced, leaving only with the subtle clues implanted by Nolan himself. Whether or not he/she comes to the same point Nolan wished to impart on him/her depends on the success of his Inception.
Cobb: You create the world of the dream. We bring the subject into that dream and fill it with their subconscious. Ariadne: How could we acquire enough details to make them think that it is reality? Cobb: Our dreams, they feel real while we’re in them right? Its only when we wake up then we realize that something was actually strange.
As Luke said in the previous This Week in Movies, “this is storytelling at it’s finest.” I wholeheartedly agree. To frame my review of this superb film I’ll give you some insight into me – I’m a father. I have two sons. I love them more than it is possible to describe. When I read the book we were still waiting for our second to be born – so I was a father of one son, like the main character. Undoubtedly this has colored my opinion of the movie and the book. Due to this, and without any qualms, I freely admit that I sobbed my way through the book, and now the movie. It was impossible for me to not embed myself, and my sons, into this story; impossible to not see my son’s face in the face of The Boy and to ponder what I would do if I were The Man. In that way, this movie is devastating, it’s uplifting, it is hopeful, haunting, bleak, and beautiful.
For those not in the know, “The Road” follows an unnamed father and son traveling across a perilous US that has been blackened and destroyed by an unspecified disaster. The road is fraught with nightmare encounters with roving, violent gangs, unscrupulous thieves, cannibals and every other horror imaginable. As humanity and morality disintegrates around them the man tries to instill and keep compassion and decency alive in the boy, they strive to carry they fire.
Viggo Mortensen and newcomer Kodi Smit-McPhee are inspired as the Man and Boy. Their father-son relationship is tender and believable. Mortensen, with his distinctive weary intellectualism, is superb as a father desperate to keep protect his son from evil. The scene where Mortensen instructs his son on how to properly commit suicide with a pistol (in order to avoid fates worse than death) is particularly crushing. In turn Smit-McPhee is excellent as the story’s embodiment of innocence and charity, of the flame that needs to be protected. In truth some of the more haunting and nightmarish scenes I’ve ever seen are in this movie – from the house with the cellar, to the thief on the beach, to the flashbacks with the Man and his wife (an immensely effective Charlize Theron). However, the soul of the film is that one can remain “good” in the face of such evil and inhumanity, and it is huge. It is encompassing, and though it is nestled in one of the more frightening celluloid landscapes I’ve experienced, it is inspirational and powerful and alive.
Director John Hillcoat (who’s feature debut was the disturbingly violent but outstanding Australian western The Proposition), with his stars, and crew, has crafted what, to me, amounts to a masterpiece. Granted he was blessed with the best piece of fiction I’ve read in at least a decade, maybe ever; but he still was able to turn Cormac McCarthy’s sparse, aptly vague prose into a visually stunning, emotionally rending, inspiring film. There are additional bonus points to be handed out to an evocative score by legendary musician Nick Cave (who penned the script for The Proposition) and to a stable of brilliant, smaller performances including an almost unrecognizable Robert Duvall and Michael Williams as a wretchedly desperate thief. The Road is a very difficult watch, that is certain, but I will recommend it to everyone – without hesitation for, ultimately, it is one of the most beautiful movies I have seen about hope, humanity, and love. Read this book. Watch this film.
(Complete Side Rant Alert: I still can’t comprehend how the Weinstein brothers allowed this movie to be ignored and overlooked. The book was a NY Times #1 bestseller. It was a part of the Oprah Book Club. It won a freaking Pulitzer. Millions of people read it and instead of a wide release with a heavy awards season push (which I’m sure would have garnered it a few important nods) they dumped it into a few dozen theaters and let it run for like 4 weeks and then pulled it. What is the thought process behind this idiocy? Who did that help? It’s a superb movie based on a popular, well-regarded novel and it was completely abandoned by it’s parent company. Meanwhile Old Dogs debuts the same weekend on 3400+ screens. Bah.)
Hollywood sure has a jonesing for origin stories these days. This isn’t your typical Robin Hood movie of merry thievery and peril at the hands of the Sheriff of Nottingham. You don’t even see Robin holed up in Nottingham Forest with his band of righteous robbers until right before the credits roll. No Errol Flynn here, Ridley Scott’s “Robin Hood” is a mix of origin story, political chicanery, and some deft battle sequences.
Scott and his screenwriters play fast and loose with British history, and by extension French history. However, if Tarantino and his fabulous “Inglourious Basterds” can be praised to the skies even as it completely redraws the facts to the most important years of the 20th then surely this can be forgiven as well (that is not to say that this is nearly as good as IB). Fairly convoluted plot made short: disenchanted with political leaders after a decade of foolish decisions in the Crusades, peasant archer in King Richards army Robin Longstride (Russell Crowe) serendipitously finds his chance to leave the army and return home. That chance leads him and his core of merry men to become ensnared in medieval identity theft, political intrigue and evil-French machinations. Action and romance ensues.
Crowe is effective as Robin; and he and a characteristically superb Cate Blanchett have a believable, mature romantic chemistry. Crowe does dial back his typical imposing physicality a little and plays Robin with a bit more mirth than I was used too in a Crowe role. (Which doesn’t mean that he doesn’t exhibit his signature reluctant-hero-taking-up-the-noble-cause mannerisms.) However good these Oscar winners may be, the movie is completely stolen by an intellectually feral Mark Strong. As a devious member of King John’s court, Strong prowls the movie with a magnetic menace. Each time the movie deviated from him I wondered what his character was doing when we weren’t seeing him.
Overall, I enjoyed this movie far more that I thought I would. It does drag in parts (especially the overtly political gobblydegook about free states or some such preaching). But my main quibble comes with the climactic battle sequence, minor plot spoilers ahead, but if you’ve seen trailers I’m not blowing anything you haven’t seen already. The last battle takes place on a beach while the French invade by sea. For some reason Scott and company decided to stage a medieval D-Day. I was mildly uncomfortable with the fact that the invasion is filmed like the opening of “Saving Private Ryan.” It’s so similar it completely displaced me from the film. From underwater up shot of soldiers drowning in the water to the disembarking soldiers getting mowed down as they spill over the sides of their vessels. It just felt cheap and designed to illicit emotion the scene didn’t earn. Secondly, I’m sick of the incessant need to have the love interest show up in battle, disguised by a helmet, which she then removes, and SHOCKER it’s Marion! WHA-WHAT woman can fight too? Oh that Marion, she’s so empowered. Give it a rest already. I’m all for female empowerment, but the need to shoehorn an enlightened ’90′s woman into the 12th century is beginning to get tiring. Everyone should have hung this trick up after Pete Jackson mastered it in The Return of the King.
Anyway, pet peeves aside, it’s a fresher, rejiggered take on a familiar legend, the Ridley Scott powered battle scenes are exciting, there’s some fun stuff with the Merry Men (Keamy from Lost is Little John and, for once, is actually likable *sniff*Lost. I miss you already*sniff*), the leads are good, and the required Robin Hood arrow POV shots are pretty thrilling too. Recommended.
“Hunger” is vivid and visual. It is also gut wrenching, brutal and unrelenting. It flows between scenes of stunning beauty and stunning violence. It’s quiet and pensive and vicious and visceral. It is based on the very real events surrounding imprisoned Irish Republican Army foot soldiers. First time filmmaker, and artist, Steve McQueen has crafted a real gem. But it is definitely not for everyone, or every stomach. When people say “art film,” I now tend to think the term was coined for “Hunger.” It is vividly beautiful in its harrowing depiction of the strength of the souls resolve and depths of human cruelty. It is also very easy to see how some will find the film indulgent, slow, and in danger of caving under it’s own preponderance.
“Hunger” takes place within the notorious confines of Maze Prison during The Troubles (the longest sustained period of wide spread violence between Ireland and England, generally lasting from the late 1960’s to the Belfast Agreement in 1998, thousands were killed on both sides.) The film starts in the midst of the IRA inmates Blanket Protest. (Here comes the history, if you want to skip this part be my guest. Known IRA members were held as common criminals and not as political prisoners. The difference being that a political prisoner is afforded many more rights and privileges than a criminal including the wearing of their own clothes, no prison work, more visits, etc. In protest of being seen as common criminals the incarcerated refused to wear prison clothes, going naked or with blankets wrapped around them, refused to shower and shave, etc. It escalated to where the guards refused to change out bathroom buckets, all furniture but mattresses were removed, beatings increased. In turn, the prisoners retaliated by smearing their excrement on the walls, never leaving there cells unless under considerable force, dumping their urine under the doors, and so forth. Each side unrelenting in their resolve and brutality.)
The plot, such as it is, is presented like a Christian triptych, a three-panel story with each panel loosely hinged to the next. The first panel concerns a new prisoner, Raymond, and his joining the Blanket Protest. Much of this first section is very nearly a silent film, almost reverential; McQueen lets the images alone speak loudly and effectively. Even the smearing of feces on a wall is approached as a solemn, dignified act. The reverence is only, shockingly, broken with viscous beatings followed by haircuts and hose showers and some particular invasive searches. Interspersed with the protest are glimpses of the life of one of Maze’s guards and the toll the job takes on his life. The second panel is the tour de force section of this film; it’s the power, pop, and heart of the film. (Additionally, for film geeks, it contains the longest, single sustained shot in celluloid history at over 17 minutes, a new roll of film had to be specially made for the shot.) In the scene, de facto prison leader Bobby Sands (Michael Fassbender in a magnetic performance) and a worldly Catholic priest (Liam Cunnigham) argue the merits of a hunger strike. It is absolutely stunning. It is riveting. Fassbender and Cunningham are pitch perfect and magnetic. Really, this scene is something to behold; it is something special, I was enraptured. The outcome of the debate solidifies Sands resolve to begin staggered hunger strikes, to up the protest, he being the first to begin. The third panel returns to the silent, respectful slant of the first. Sands begins to refuse food and eventually wastes away in protest (Fassbender is again riveting and apparently lost over 40 pounds to appear starved). Watching Sands waste away into skeletal bed rest, having to be carried to the toilet and pitied by his attending physician is gut wrenching; the self-inflicted violence effectively mirroring the administered violence of the first panel. “Hunger’s” third panel nails down the films gut-punch, it is emotionally draining.
Throughout the film however, there was a quiet gnawing at the back of my head that soon began to really pound away. That pounding boils down to this: It’s obvious that McQueen respects these prisoners and their will power. But it doesn’t stop there, McQueen seems to be taking these protesting prisoners and their starving leaders down the path of beatification and on towards sanctification without acknowledging that, frankly, these men are violent at best, terrorists at worst. It is easy to romanticize the IRA and it’s struggle. The scrappy Irish freedom fighters with their lilting voices and shocks of red hair fighting tooth and nail against the big bad machine of militarized, late-millennial Britain. Their sustained, armed struggle for unification over the oppression of an occupying superpower is easy to view through shamrock-tinted glasses. I know. I’ve studied the history and at times have over simplified their case; I’ve “supported” them and respected them and, to a degree, still do. But, in truth, the IRA is a violent and often brutish entity and is guilty of quite a few shocking, and despicable, acts. The Troubles, particularly at the time this movie takes place, were such a boiling mess of tit-for-tat aggression and dirty tactics that both sides are equally to blame for the escalating horrors. There is no acknowledgment of this in the film however. McQueen, who surprisingly is a native born Englishman, and helped write the screenplay, seemingly lays all fault, mistakenly, at the feet of Thatcher’s England. He would have the unfamiliar believing that all the prisoners were falsely accused guardian angels of the Emerald Isle. His blind acquittal of these men is unnerving. (If you’re interested, here’s a pointed British review of the film that more succinctly sums up, with history!, what stuck in my craw about the pardoning manner of this film).
I must admit though that, despite my unease with the historical whitewashing, I was thoroughly moved and marginally devastated by this film. Regardless of politics and your view of Irish Republicanism and Unification if you can stomach the disturbing elements of this film it is well worth the endeavor. It is gorgeously made and visually stunning – each shot could be freeze framed and reproduced as art worthy of a prominent wall hanging. The idea of the body being the last weapon of protest is resonant. The performances, especially the star-making turn by Fassbender, are moving. Its overall impact is powerful and long lasting. It may take some patience, but consider “Hunger” highly, highly recommend.
(Stay tuned, too, this is a two part-er review of new-ish films now on DVD, that flew under the radar and into few theaters, that both deal with The Troubles. The second of this utterly dichotomous pair is “50 Dead Men Walking,” which review will come along shortly. You’re riveted, I know.)
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