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Shared Darkness

A Communal Life in Film, Examined

Daily Archives: September 4, 2008

Mister Foe

A warped coming-of-age tale that connects courtesy of the unfussy straightforwardness and charm of its lead performances, British import Mister Foe delivers audiences a much different portrait of star Jamie Bell than American audiences will remember from his feel-good debut film, Billy Elliot.

Hallam Foe (Bell) is a troubled young man whose penchant for voyeurism and regressive dress-up paradoxically reveals his darkest fears and his most peculiar desires. A 17-year-old misfit, Hallam spends lonely days spying on others at the Scottish Highlands estate of his father (Ciarán Hinds), haunted by his mother’s suicide. When his beautiful new stepmother Verity (Claire Forlani) starts asserting herself with respect to his father’s business affairs, Hallam begins to suspect that maybe she even played a hand in his mother’s death.

Confusing matters even more for Hallam, he finds himself attracted and repelled by Verity in equal measure. When the tension brewing between the two erupts, Hallam runs away, fleeing the countryside for the big city. With no money and no friends to speak of, he crashes down into reality in Edinburgh. Adept at fading into the background and peering in on the lives of others to escape his own every day life, Hallam soon becomes obsessed with Kate (Sophia Myles, above), a hotel middle manager who bears an uncanny resemblance to his deceased mother. Landing a job in the hotel’s kitchen, Hallam finds himself drawn to the older Kate but unable to confess his secrets to her. When the reality of life back home finally catches up with him, Hallam is faced with betraying the memory of the mother he longs for or using his one last chance to grow up.

Co-written and directed by David Mackenzie (Young Adam), Mister Foe trades in plenty of the filmmaker’s familiar staples (clutchy, inappropriate sex that’s hardly erotic or titillating; rain and/or water as a motif; hand-held camerawork and a paucity of color). Mackenzie is also keen on peddling half-frames — obscuring our view of Hallam, to parallel the blinkered fashion in which he views the world. This lurking, nonjudgmental camerawork also has the benefit of muddying the narrative waters with regards to Hallam’s feelings about Verity, and some of the more radical assertions about her nature — a facet of the narrative that is otherwise, through no particular fault of Hinds or Forlani, the weakest part of the movie.

Bell has played wounded, emotionally withdrawn figures before, as in The Chumscrubber, but there’s a core warmth and decency to Hallam that here tugs one along, past some of the more outré inclusions of the story proper. A soundtrack powered by Franz Ferdinand, King Creosote, Orange Juice, Hood, Woodbine and other up-and-coming Brit rockers definitely helps lend Mister Foe (or Hallam Foe, as it was released elsewhere, a title deemed too abstruse for American audiences given the exotic nature of its name) a certain young-boy-in-the-big-city gravity and weight. Parts of the movie feel strangely Dickensian, other moments feel like a Smiths song come to life. Regardless, adolescence is a time when feelings often govern decisions more than reason, and Mister Foe is powered by that same sense of forceful capriciousness. Apart from some closure on the familial story strand that feels somewhat forcibly tacked on, that modus operandi serves this little curio quite well. (Magnolia, R, 95 minutes)

Virgin Territory

A sort of laboriously “hip,” teen-pitched re-interpretation of a literary classic, Virgin Territory is adapted and directed by David Leland from Giovanni Boccaccio’s The Decameron, and bills itself, weirdly, desperately, as “a freewheeling mix of Monty Python’s historical absurdity with American Pie‘s teen raunch.” In reality, this period piece comedy — packaged by executive producer Dino De Laurentiis and produced by his wife Martha — is an atonal mish-mash that star Hayden Christensen probably took on for the several scenes in which he gets to make out with various topless nuns (as shown below), in some weird dream fetish realization.

In the aftermath of the “Black Plague” in 14th century Florence, the city’s lusty young men and chaste maidens flee to the countryside. But for charming scoundrel Lorenzo di Lamberti (Christensen), the only woman that sets his heart ablaze is orphaned beauty Pampinea Anastagi (Mischa Barton), who is betrothed to an obsessed Russian nobleman, Count Dzerzhinsky (Matthew Rhys), but also being pursued by Gerbino de la Ratta (Tim Roth, playing the Rufus Sewell role), a conniving countryman and business associate of her late father who has vowed to take Pampinea’s virtue. With Gerbino trying to kill him, Lorenzo escapes to to countryside, where he feigns being deaf and mute in order to be taken in at the Sacred Sisters of the Blessed Heart convent. Naturally, these nuns turn out to be quite lusty, so they make Lorenzo their kept boy, and take turns satisfying themselves on/with him.

As Pampinea escapes to the countryside and Gerbino and Count Dzerzhinsky square off, Lorenzo’s adventures are intercut with another band of wayward travelers, including a guy whose chirpy, proper redheaded girlfriend (Rosalind Halstead) is making him wait until marriage to savor her carnal delights. (Think of him as the film’s Jason Biggs character.) Pampinea soon comes across Lorenzo, and things come to a head when he has a chance to confess his feelings to her, and eventually win her over in swashbuckling fashion.

Made in 2005 and screened last year at the Toronto Film Festival, the sumptuously costumed Virgin Territory has trouble connecting in large part because it
can never settle on a convincing tone. It partially desires to be a
twisted look at 14th century love and angsty sexual repression, but it’s staged, written and shot with an eye toward decidedly modern tropes, set-ups and visual flourishes — hence very straightforwardly presented nudity, characters falling face down in piles of feces, and a terrible, surf guitar-infused score from Ilan Eshkeri. The movie is also saddled with a strange, rib-nudging narration from a supporting character, painter Tindaro (Craig Parkinson), that is far less clever and essential a guide than director Leland clearly thinks.

Christensen and Barton — frequently bagged on by critics for their star turns in the Star Wars prequels and on the small screen in The O.C., respectively — are individually fine, but never really given the chance to generate quite as much lead-character heat as this movie needs to sustain its fallow passages. The air-quote wit here is pretty thin, which makes the whole thing feel like a time-warp episode of your average high school small screen serial, recast in period-piece fashion in Florence for sweeps, or a fourth season kick-off. On the upside, there is plenty of nakedness, but 15-year-olds no longer need faux-arty film rentals to glimpse such things, do they?

Virgin Territory comes housed in a regular plastic Amay case stored in a cardboard slipcase with alternate cover art, and is presented in 1.78:1 anamorphic widescreen, enhanced for 16×9 televisions, with a Dolby surround 5.1 audio track. A cover sticker touts the movie as being part of Anchor Bay’s new “Unzipped”
label, whatever that means (presumably films with copious nudity). A 13-minute behind-the-scenes featurette includes interviews with Christensen, Leland and cinematographer Ben Davis, but also leans far too heavily on long scene snippets for such a short production overview. In addition to the movie’s trailer, a preview of Rock of Love that starts automatically upon insertion of the DVD, and a three-minute spotlight of David
Walliams — the star of TV’s Little Britain, USA, who has a bit part here as a doofusy cart pusher who Lorenzo happens upon — there are about three-and-a-half minutes of material billed as “censored scenes of sexuality.” These are for the most part extended/alternate takes of material already in the movie, including a scene in which Kate Groombridge emerges from a river and showcases her landing strip. Though unbilled on the back cover, there’s also a scrollable picture gallery of Roberto Cavalli’s costume sketches. C- (Movie) C+ (Disc)

Does Bangkok Dangerous Actually Exist?

I caught a TV ad today for Nicolas Cage’s Bangkok Dangerous, and joltingly realized that it’s becoming more and more likely this movie actually exists. Since Lionsgate is again hewing to its seemingly standard policy of not screening the movie in advance (see Disaster Movie, The Midnight Meat Train), I had fallen into a half-belief that the film was a hallucination on my part — that the trailer was pieced together from National Treasure outtakes and maybe footage from a honeymoon vacation and the Asian swing of an international press tour Cage did with the aforementioned film.

Professionally, when a movie isn’t screening in advance, sometimes I’ll still nab a review on opening day (see above examples), but, on a more personal level, I find that mentally I start to write these films off, and just discount their very existence. Wonkish, profit-protecting studio number-crunchers would obviously disagree, but I tend to think that a sizeable portion of the film-going public actually thinks like this as well. Yes, they see the TV ads and billboards, but when the free-media onslaught includes absolutely no reviews, they smell an attempted put-on.

Sophia Myles Talks Mister Foe, Unsexy Sex Scenes

For English beauty Sophia Myles, 2006 represented a sort of coming-out party, with the period piece romance Tristan & Isolde and the vampire-and-werewolf action sequel Underworld: Evolution releasing within a week of one another, and a plum role in Terry Zwigoff’s Art School Confidential following five months later. Myles’ latest film is writer-director David Mackenzie’s Mister Foe, in which she stars opposite Jamie Bell as Kate Breck, a middle-management hotel employee who enters into a warped relationship with a mixed-up kid, Hallam, who starts spying on her because she reminds him of his dead mother. I spoke with Myles recently about working with a pervy, adult Billy Elliot, Mackenzie’s deft touch with sex, and fan reaction to the recently canceled CBS vampire drama Moonlight. For the full Q&A interview, from New York Magazine‘s Vulture, click here.

Robert Englund Doesn’t Remember Neville Brand Trying to Rape Anyone

I spoke to the loquacious Robert Englund recently, for a feature piece about both Jack Brooks: Monster Slayer and his career as a horror icon. Wrapping up, out of left field I couldn’t resist asking him about how insane Neville Brand may or may not have been, since on the audio commentary track for the DVD release of Tobe Hooper’s Eaten Alive — the movie that sparked Quentin Tarantino’s Kill Bill homage of Englund’s character and his signature sleazy line, “My name is Buck, and I wanna fuck” — costar Roberta Collins talks about Brand trying to sexually assault her.

“I’m not sure,” says Englund, seemingly genuinely stumped. “I don’t even remember him being extremely eccentric. He was Neville Brand, but I think he might have been having problems with his family in Malibu — that’s something in the back of my head, that he was going through a bad divorce or maybe some problems with his daughter. I don’t know, I vaguely remember that. And he may have freaked out after I left the project.”

Community Organizers Punch Back at Palin


Community organizers were understandably irked by Republican vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin‘s comments last night in her acceptance speech at the Republican National Convention, in which she mocked Barack Obama’s experience as a community organizer thusly: “I guess a small town mayor is sort of like a community organizer — except that you have actual responsibilities.” This being the digital age, they’ve quickly created an outlet for their push-back, via this web site.

It’s worth noting that this wasn’t just some off-the-reservation one-liner, either; it was part of a sustained line of scornful Republican attack, with former New York Governor George Pataki saying, “[Barack Obama] was a community organizer — what in God’s name is a community organizer? I don’t even know if that’s a job,” and former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani playing to an eager crowd’s laughter, offering up, “[Obama] worked as a community organizer. What? I said, ‘OK, OK, maybe this is the first problem on the resume.'”

Even before the Internet, this is the sort of mass-agitable detail — wherein a campaign really steps in a big pile of it with a certain constituency, but seeks to move forward and drown out the clamor of disaffection by denying any attack and taking mock-offense at those who raise it as an issue — that even the best films about political campaigns have a hard time cramming in. Watch for it over the next 72 to 96 hours, in particular.

College

By all accounts the randy new teen comedy College should have been a solid late summer performer — the movie that kids either just back at school or gearing up to head back to class went to check out over the weekend, in order to get primed for some autumnal partying. Instead, the movie was stillborn at the box office, debuting to just $2.15 million in its first weekend — failing to crack the top 10 in the same slot that the party-hearty Accepted grossed eight figures en route to a total domestic haul of $36 million just two years ago.



As if designed by checklist, College has all the most essential ingredients of a low-budget teen comedy: an R rating, an eye-grabbing poster, a cost-efficient cast comprised of mostly new faces, cartoonish antagonists in the form of frat-boy jerks, and plenty of nudity. About the only thing College misses the mark on is the inclusion of a henpecking or ironically hip parental presence. (Fred Willard wasn’t available, apparently.)

And yet… it doesn’t gel. And a general audience screening on opening day afforded a unique opportunity to witness firsthand viewer dissatisfaction with College. At an afternoon show with 20-25 people, someone actually threw a drink at the screen — something I didn’t think really happened anymore, what with their $6-plus cost. The group later left, and not too quietly. Teen braggadocio, sure, but still… if your core constituency will effectively surrender as much money filing a flamboyant protest as to the quality of your movie as he did actually patronizing it, that’s probably not a good sign.

Somewhat belying the title, College centers mostly on three high school kids, and the weekend roadie they take to Fieldmont University in order to acquaint themselves with the institution and its academic and social climate. Having just been dumped by his girlfriend, buttoned-up Kevin Brewer (Superhero Movie‘s Drake Bell, above center) is inclined to loosen up a bit and start taking some risks, especially when he meets Kendall (Haley Bennett), a sorority gal who shares his interest in photography. Gangly, bespectacled Morris Hooper (Kevin Covais, above left) is even more bookish and tightly wound, which makes him the perfect punching bag (verbally and quite literally) for Carter Scott (Andrew Caldwell, above right), the requisite motor-mouthed fat oaf of the bunch. When the student at their assigned dorm housing seems too weird, the trio head to a nearby frat house, where Carter’s (never-met) cousin was once a member. There, the guys are put through hell for their room and board, with the threat of revelation of their “pre-freshmen” status always being used as an instrument of bullying and torture.

Debut feature filmmaker Deb Hagan injects a lot of energy into the proceedings, but College‘s main failings are twofold. First, the story requires that Kevin and his pals constantly re-engage and keep on some level trusting the jackass fraternity members who take all their money and generally make their lives hell for a couple days. By the time the revenge element of the screenplay kicks in, during its last 10 minutes, you’ve ceased looking at these guys as anything but doormats, collectively and individually.

Second, and there’s not particularly a polite way to put this, College just doesn’t pass its personality exam. Seminal teen flick American Pie launched and/or solidified a couple careers, including that of Jason Biggs, Seann William Scott, Alyson Hannigan and Shannon Elizabeth. It even secured steady work for Chris Klein and Chris Owen, for Pete’s sake. This October’s Sex Drive, by point of further comparison, has a cast that elevates the material in delightful ways. Its three leads — Josh Zuckerman, Amanda Crew and Clark Duke — all make hay, delivering not only the laughs in the script, but also comedic moments of their own devising.

While College has the minor-chord titillation of seeing former American Idol contestant Covais drop a couple F-bombs and eventually roll around in some mud-caked tighty-whiteys, there just isn’t ever any pop here on the screen — a feeling that something special is happening, or a star maybe being born. The best teen sex comedies feel at some point dangerous and reckless, as if one or more characters might just do anything, but the wackiness and outrage in College feels never less than manufactured. Caldwell merely comes across as the guy cast when Jonah Hill quickly passed without reading, and Bell, a huge Nickelodeon star courtesy of Drake & Josh, is a milquetoast lead. I wouldn’t waste a $6 drink, but I understand that teen’s irritation. (MGM, R, 94 minutes)

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