Full review to soon follow this week, but it’s worth noting that No Strings Attached — in addition to having the easy-on-the-eyes appeal of Natalie Portman and Ashton Kutcher, the latter shirtless almost as much as in Spread — possesses the truth of a coarse exhalation. I tried to touch on this a bit in my review, but — word count and all — it was difficult to elucidate in such a necessarily cramped space. The movie’s plot, of course, charts the difficulties two pushing-thirtysomethings encounter when they try to make a go of mutual-use casual sex. It’s directed by Ivan Reitman and written by a woman, so while it flirts with vulgarity occasionally the tone is never really what one would call full-on gross-out/shock.
The problem with so many films charting the ups and downs of young adult relationships, however, is that they must fit within the confines of a PG-13 rating, which is patently ridiculous and runs counter to reality. Or, conversely, if the movies are R-rated (as is the case with No Strings Attached), they veer so heartily over to the other side of the road as to seem cheap and gimmicky in their language. Reitman, though, instinctively knows the value — the necessary weight, the appropriate moment of deployment — of profanity in this sort of context.
So when Emma, Portman’s character, seemingly screws up her chance with Adam, Kutcher’s character, after coming around and warming slowly to the notion of a relationship, and exhales, simply, “Fuck,” it is an at once funny and heartrending encapsulation of her weary, romantic hopelessness. Crocodile tears, or “Rats!” or other language that pussyfoots around this reality simply does not work. Thankfully, No Strings Attached isn’t attached to outmoded mainstream niceties.
Daily Archives: January 17, 2011
And Soon the Darkness
To my knowledge there is but one film featuring Odette Yustman dancing and singing along to the DiVinyls’ “I Touch Myself,”
so if one wants to see that moment, they might have to submit to And Soon the Darkness, a chick-centric remake of a
1970 British film which serves as an entirely credible entry in the canon of doomed-American travelogue tales
like Turistas.
The story follows two American girls, Stephanie (Amber Heard) and Ellie (Yustman), who embark on a bike tour through a remote part of Argentina’s countryside. After a long night of bar-hopping, the girls decide to get in some suntanning. They then get into an argument, and
Stephanie heads goes away, to cool off. When she
returns, Ellie has disappeared. The local sheriff seems not very helpful or concerned, and a panicked Stephanie soon meets Michael (Karl Urban), an American ex-pat staying at their hotel. She must then deduce whether one, both, or neither of these men can be trusted as she works to find out whether or not her worst fears regarding Ellie are true.
So, not supremely original, right? True, but director Marcos Efron has a nice sense of pacing, and for the most part knows how to construct a scene so that its menace is slow-building, and not arbitrarily the product of a lot of jump-cuts. Cinematographer Gabriel Beristain also shoots a gorgeous frame, capturing a lot of natural beauty to complement the fantastic curves and bodacious stems of the movie’s two stars. The material itself isn’t that wonderful — either in terms of the dialogue or the eventual “twists,” which are completely obvious from about the 20-minute mark. But Heard in particular gives a solid performance, slotting this little thriller as a credible rental for genre fans.
Housed in a regular plastic Amaray case, And Soon the Darkness comes to DVD presented in 2.40:1 anamorphic widescreen, with a Dolby digital 5.1 surround sound audio track and optional English SDH and Spanish subtitles. Its bonus features are anchored by a nice audio
commentary track featuring director Efron, editor Todd Miller and director of photography Beristain; they talk about difficulties of on-location production, three hours north of Buenos Aires; Efron also talks up his roots to the material, pointing out that his father was born and raised in Argentina, and would frequently regale him with stories of its wilderness. There’s also an 11-minute video diary featuring behind-the-scenes footage from the set that confirms both Heard’s bilingual skills and the fact that a shot in the film was actually completed on a moving Segway. Oh, and there is also a small collection of deleted scenes. To purchase the DVD via Amazon, click here. C+ (Movie) C+ (Disc)
The Hessen Conspiracy
I don’t know him from the deli counter checkout guy, but Billy Zane just exudes entitled luckiness — the charmed air of a rakish guy who’s scooted by on chiseled good looks and little more, and managed to consistently fail upward, into what I imagine is a pretty comfortable lifestyle. He looks like a Tag Heuer model or perhaps a cigar company spokesman, and if he’s not busy floating through Twin Peaks‘ second season or being a jerk to Kate Winslet in Titanic, he’s bedding C-level starlets and Croatian models in smirking fashion, and fleecing and subsequently getting sued by Uwe Boll. (I’m not sure whom to root for in that latter contretemps.)
The latest piece of screen entertainment onto which Zane alights is The Hessen Conspiracy, a wan World War II flick and self-described neo-noir thriller that fancies itself a sort of swashbuckling cross between The Good German and some long-lost Indiana Jones adventure. Based on supposedly true events, it unfolds in Frankfurt in 1945. The war has been lost for Germany, and its citizens are restless, resentful, suspicious — and thus often ready to make a deal on the black market, trading in secrets that will benefit their families and themselves.
Outside the city is a large manse, Castle Kronberg, which serves as a country club of sorts for swaggering, victorious American officers. Colonel Jack Durant (Zane) and the beautiful Lieutenant Kathleen Nash (Lyne Renée) have no problem taking advantage of the situation. But when they discover a cache of priceless gems — crown jewels of Germany, Prussian riches that rival anything found in the Tower of London — the renegades must step out of their comfort zone into one of greed and danger. Traveling to New York to seeking a fence for their dazzling, dangerous steal, they get caught up in a web of spies, gangsters, royalty, millionaires and other rogue Army officers. Before long, they begin to distrust even one another.
The Hessen Conspiracy is scripted by Nicholas Meyer and Ronald Roose, and directed by Paul Breuls, and it unfolds in an entirely professional if overly self-serious manner. The production design work here, by Paul Peters, is actually fairly solid for such a modestly budgeted flick. The dialogue has little snap, though, and the performances are these airless, joyless things — partitioned off from one another, and with little sense of either fun interplay or sincere imperilment. For a movie that is about a jewel heist, however rooted in historical context, that is damning.
Housed in a regular plastic Amaray case, The Hessen Conspiracy comes to DVD presented in 1.85:1 anamorphic widescreen, with English SDH subtitles and a Dolby digital 5.1 audio track. Apart from chapter stops, special bonus features consist of… nothing. To purchase the DVD via Amazon, click here. D+ (Movie) D (Disc)