It’s a happy 30th birthday to Noureen DeWulf as well as a happy 38th birthday to Ali Larter, the latter of whom no doubt has had to engage in some Cool Whip shenanigans over the years to satiate suitors.
Monthly Archives: February 2014
Non-Stop
Non-Stop, starring Liam Neeson as an air marshal who during a trans-Atlantic flight has a Very Bad Day of the decidedly action movie variety, starts off fairly intriguingly. Its protagonist is brusque and distracted; before boarding his flight he takes a swig of booze to let us know he’s an alcoholic and help signify his tragic past, true, but then he smokes a cigarette after a few spritzes of breath spray, indicating a different pathology. Eventually, though, Non-Stop runs out of interesting little character quirks and recognizable names and faces stuffed into supporting roles to pump up the guessing-game as to its guilty party/parties, succumbing to less interesting, jerry-rigged thrills and payoffs that will play fine with a popcorn and soda but immediately dissipate upon exiting a theater, and leave one feeling a bit empty.
Neeson stars as William Marks, a government lawman who seems ill-suited for his job, given his fear of lift-off. Not long after his plane is airborne, Marks starts receiving text messages on his secure-line phone, making a few personal cracks and announcing that a passenger will die every 20 minutes unless and until $150 million is wire-deposited into a bank account. It turns out Marks has a fellow federal agent (Anson Mount) on board with him, whom he immediately suspects. Naturally, though, things turn out to be a lot thornier, and as Marks tries to get the flight attendants (Michelle Dockery and Lupita Nyong’o) to keep everyone calm and cooperative, an array of passengers and even the pilots (a group which includes Julianne Moore, Scoot McNairy, Corey Stoll, Nate Parker, Linus Roache and Shea Whigham) come in and out of focus as suspects. Of course, it doesn’t help or look good for Marks when the account is revealed to be in his name, and passengers watching in-flight TV begin seeing him identified as the hijacking culprit.
Non-Stop‘s screenplay, by first-timers John W. Richardson, Christopher Roach and Ryan Engle, suffers from the sort of contortionist aches that fairly commonly plague studio genre fare; the scribes take a purposefully ridiculous but entertaining conceit and then, rather than invest deeply and honestly in characters and the tension of how things will turn out, they expend a lot of time and energy on head feints and red herrings and capital-T twists and turns. Re-writes and different writers are of course common in Hollywood, but screenplays of this sort aren’t shaped so much by honest story notes, one gets the feeling, as directives to make the current movie more like that other movie from two years ago, but less like this film from earlier in the year from a competing studio, though maybe with a pinch of the same thing that was in that other successful movie starring the same actor in this movie. Sure, Non-Stop exists because the Taken films and 2011’s Unknown made an obscene amount of money — we all know that. But we could aim for a little more than 10 to 15 percent of gradient differentiation in our cash grabs, couldn’t we?
Editor Jim May and director Jaume Collet-Serra, who previously collaborated with Neeson on the aforementioned Unknown, bring a straightforward economy to the action beats, but also fail to come up with a more compelling way to mark the passage of time. Normally that would be the job of the script, but here it’s so consumed with whodunit? head games (bound to be a letdown or shrug for most) as to ignore the basic question of what it might feel like to be a passenger on such a flight. (It certainly doesn’t help that, 30 minutes into the film, there’s a dead body in a bathroom that no one happens to come across.) That’s the real and potentially unique element of Non-Stop, but it’s brushed aside to allow for Neeson’s swaggering redemption. In comparison to recent dreck like Pompeii, Non-Stop is a worthwhile alternative, it’s true. But that doesn’t make it good in its own right. (Universal, PG-13, 107 minutes)
The Americans: Season One (Blu-ray)
The notion of Keri Russell, still fixed in the minds of so many as the namesake star of small screen college drama Felicity, playing a deep-cover Russian operative in a period piece spy drama like The Americans always seemed like something of a stretch. But, opposite costar Matthew Rhys, Russell reliably helps anchor FX’s chess-game serial, returning this month for its second season.
Created by Joe Weisberg, an ex-CIA agent of four years and the brother of Slate Group editor-in-chief Jacob Weisberg, The Americans is a meat-and-potatoes show whose classic conflict set-up and intriguing explorations of moored (and unmoored) personal identity amidst chronic, ingrained deceit win out over some occasionally soapier instincts. As such, it seems poised to build on the gains of its debut run, and perhaps inherit some viewers who’ve over the last couple years fallen in love with AMC’s hearty fare.
The series unfolds in 1980s Washington, D.C., where Ronald Reagan‘s inauguration has pricked the sensitive ears of Moscow, and quietly escalated long-simmering Cold War tensions. With two kids and a house in a sleepy Alexandria, Virginia cul-de-sac, Philip and Elizabeth Jennings (Rhys and Russell) seem like ordinary suburbanites, but they’re actually sleeper-cell KGB operatives who have established American identities as part of a long-term plot to not only monitor actions of the United States government but steal secrets and bring it down. Complicating matters are their new neighbors from across the street — Stan Beeman (Noah Emmerich), a FBI agent working in counter-intelligence, and his wife Sandra (Susan Misner).
In short order, The Americans turns into a roundelay of coerced sources, overlapping operations and cat-and-mouse intrigue. Stan catches a young Soviet embassy employee, Nina (Annet Mahendru), in a compromising position, and turns her into an asset. Meanwhile, Philip and Elizabeth have also taken lovers of their own, who they use as pawns in their attempts to meet directives they alternately receive in late-night encoded dead-drops and from their new KGB handler, Claudia (Margo Martindale). Philip, in another guise, carries on a relationship with Martha Hanson (Alison Wright), a secretary for Stan’s boss who works in the same FBI office; Elizabeth, meanwhile, has revealed her true identity to Gregory Thomas (Derek Luke), a young African-American radical who uses ties to unwitting low-level criminal types to run interference for her.
For better or worse, The Americans seems poised between programmatic procedural and something occasionally a bit artier and more ambitious. The basic set-up — law-breakers living a secret life against a fairly quiet domestic backdrop, under the nose of a law enforcement officer who is both a close friend and tasked with direct investigation into the area of their transgressions — definitely feels like it owes something to Breaking Bad. Well… it owes a lot to Breaking Bad, really. But some of its subplots (an arc with Gregory, for instance, who becomes a compromised asset) aren’t quite as fascinating or successfully interwoven as its writers believe them to be.
What gives the series some elevation and an additional layer of psychological involvement is Philip and Elizabeth’s backstory, and differing relationships they have with the United States. The two were thrown into this arranged marriage as part of their cover, never having met previously (there are plenty of flashbacks, but it’s not abused as a device), and Elizabeth remains a hardcore idealogue and ardent patriot to her homeland. Philip, on the other hand, is slightly more of a pragmatist, and concerned with what the future holds for their children (ages 13 and 7), who know nothing of their double lives. This leads him to make an offhand comment about potentially defecting, which throws even more turmoil and suspicion onto his relationship with Elizabeth.
Since, in the long run, the Cold War is history, The Americans is at its best when milking tension from the untenable positions that Philip and Elizabeth often find themselves in, and rooting down into the general stew of distrust in which its necessarily duplicitous characters all live and operate. Even if some of these situations are a bit ridiculous (tracking down an assassin tasked with killing American scientists after Russia has a change of heart but is unable to contact their contract killer), they help connect Philip and Elizabeth to geopolitical events in an interesting and even gripping way.
This is most embodied in the first season’s best episode, which finds Philip and Elizabeth desperately utilizing a variety of resources in an effort to get real-time information after John Hinckley, Jr.’s shooting of President Reagan. At first the Jennings’ KGB handlers are paranoid about Russia being framed for the attempted assassination, but they also ponder it as an exploitable moment. Then, when Secretary of State Alexander Haig makes comments about being “in control here” at a television news briefing, there’s even a momentary belief that a full-scale coup is underway.
The Americans is also an interesting study of marriage as a partnership, since Philip and Elizabeth’s relationship goes from cold and unblinking to amorous and back again (and again) over the course of the first season. “It never really happened for us, but I feel like it’s happening now,” says Elizabeth at one point. A couple episodes later she catches Philip in an inconsequential lie, and their clock resets anew. It’s a maddening dance, but one that catches and holds a viewer’s interest.
Where the series struggles a bit is in sometimes believably integrating Philip and Elizabeth’s kids into the proceedings (there’s an inane bit in one episode in which the kids don’t get picked up from the mall, hitch-hike home and fall in with a would-be rapist), and also in making Beeman a more worthy adversary. The FBI agent is good at his job, and he and especially his hard-charging boss (Richard Thomas) give The Americans a potentially strong, complementary “American” point-of-view, to counterbalance its Russian subjects. But Weisberg and the writers seem obsessed with making Beeman “flawed” in corresponding fashion. While they press Beeman’s professional doggedness, it would be interesting to further exploit, on an institutional level, the gap between public voice and private reality in this silent war of considerable subterfuge. Also, while I realize that sexual trading and the exploitation of libidinal pressure points is part of true-life spycraft, some of it here feels like little more than highlighted metaphor. A little of this goes a long way, and it comes off as overplayed. Still, one gets the feeling that there’s plenty of interesting future grist for the mill with The Americans, if only House of Cards fanatics can make room for another (slightly bloodier) political drama in their lives.
The Americans comes to DVD and Blu-ray in advance of the second season’s bow on FX next week, and is presented in the latter format across three 50GB dual layer disc
s. The colors in its 1.78:1 widescreen transfer and 1080p treatment are consistent, but with a flushed-out palette and more muted hues that eschew loud primary colors (a marker of later in the decade) and underscore the suburban ennui, which in turn stands in stark contrast to the high stakes of its spy games. The DTS-HD master audio 5.1 track that anchors the Blu-ray release is solid in its tone and breadth, but honestly seems mixed a bit low across the board. There aren’t any wild spikes during action sequences, but you’ll likely have to play it back two to four clicks higher than your normal volume in order to register dialogue cleanly. Spanish, French and English SDH subtitle options are also available.
As for bonus features, a collection of deleted scenes is spread out over each of the discs relevant to the episodes they contain, which is fine, though I know some folks prefer a more curated approach. These dwindle (in both number and significance) as the episodes wear on, though there’s a weird strand with Sandra having broken her leg. There’s also a commentary track with Weisberg, Emmerich and producer Joel Fields on the episode “The Colonel,” plus three separate featurettes which cover a surprising amount of ground. They have monikers which indicate a nominal partitioning, but honestly there’s a lot of crossover between creative decision-making and production information within the pieces.
The nicest thing is that these featurettes, running six to 16 minutes apiece, are all edited smartly, avoiding the sort of repetitive, desultory clip-fests that too many supplemental short-form pieces utilize. Weisberg talks about the show’s roots in the odd 2010 outing and deportation of a Russian spy ring, and also shares some of his own work experience at the CIA. Interviews with Russell, Rhys, Emmerich and others, meanwhile, are artfully interwoven into segments that examine everything from the fighting style used in the series (krav maga, with some cheating) to its production design and old-school technology. Fields and a couple other behind-the-camera talents get screen time, too, like producer-director Adam Arkin, which is cool, but a bit of input from some of the more interesting “hired hand” directors (like John Dahl) would have been a nice bonus. (Maybe for next season’s set, one hopes.) Wrapping things up is a three-and-a-half-minute gag reel. In addition to the expected line flubs, some cheeky editor puts faux-binoculars around a bunch of dancing and goofing off; there’s also a good number of food-related screw-ups of takes, and a bus taking out a signpost during an establishing shot. To purchase the Blu-ray set via Half, click here; to purchase via Amazon, click here. B- (Show) B+ (Disc)
Gary Oldman Talks RoboCop, Google Research
Did I have a chance to take part in a recent Los Angeles press day for RoboCop, where Gary Oldman shared his thoughts on the film and his use of Google for research purposes? Why, yes, yes I did. The conversation is excerpted over at ShockYa, so click here for the read.
3 Days To Kill
It’s easy, on a theoretical level, to imagine 59-year-old Kevin Costner looking at the post-Taken action flick paydays of Liam Neeson, two years his elder, and saying, “Hey, why not me?” It’s less easy to understand anything else about the mishmash that is 3 Days To Kill, an incredibly inane shoot-’em-up from director McG that mistakes self-satisfaction for vicarious entertainment. Co-written by Luc Besson, 3 Days To Kill is much more of an action-comedy than its advertising lets on — though that may be a smart bait-and-switch given that tonal clumsiness and a stunning lack of attention to detail are the film’s two most consistent traits. For the full, original review, from Paste, click here. (Relativity Media, PG-13, 117 minutes)
The Invoking
Form wins out over formula in The Invoking, a low-budget psychological horror picture from director Jeremy Berg and co-writer John Portanova. While a lot of calling-card-type independent genre productions overreach in an effort by the makers to confirm their genius with a splashy, authoritative stamp, sometimes merely solid albeit familiar storytelling is the best way to make a statement.
The Invoking centers around Samantha Harris (Trin Miller), a young girl raised by foster parents who inherits a house in rural Sader Ridge from her late aunt. Gathering up friends Roman (Josh Truax), Caitlin (Andi Norris) and Mark (Brandon Anthony), Samantha leads a road trip to inspect the property. Not long after arriving and meeting the requisite creep caretaker (D’Angelo Midili), however, Samantha starts to experience horrific visions that seem related to her buried past. Bad happenings ensue, with broader consequences for all involved.
Berg keeps things moving at a decent clip (the movie is a mere 82 minutes), sometimes so quickly that one wishes there were a chance to sink into moodiness to a greater degree. But if The Invoking treads mostly familiar territory, its cast is game, all delivering naturalistic, relaxed performances that help give the material a greater emotional mooring and resonance.
Housed in a regular plastic Amaray case in turn stored in a complementary cardboard slipcover, The Invoking comes to DVD presented in a 1.78:1 widescreen transfer, with a Dolby digital 5.1 surround sound audio track. Bonus features consist of two separate audio commentary tracks — one with Berg and producers of the movie, heavy on shooting and pre-production anecdotes, and the other a bit more loose-limbed, with the actors — as well as a behind-the-scenes featurette that thankfully sidesteps the lazy recycling of movie clips. To purchase the DVD via Amazon, click here; if Half is more your style, click here. C+ (Movie) C+ (Disc)
Pompeii
The best thing one can realistically say about Pompeii, the new and utterly ridiculous, CGI-addled love-story-cum-disaster-porn offering from Resident Evil filmmaker Paul W. S. Anderson, is that it elicits a genuine curiosity to learn more about the first-century Roman city felled by volcanic eruption, since one has so much free time to ponder the narrative’s legitimate historical underpinnings whilst letting waves of inanity wash over them. Borrowing liberally (and not that imaginatively) from Gladiator, Titanic and Volcano, this empty, air-quote epic embodies the worst instincts of disposable Hollywood storytelling, reducing mass-scale tragedy to nothing more than a backdrop for cheap, boilerplate villainy and romance.
Pompeii unfolds in 79 AD, where Celtic Briton Milo (Kit Harington) is a slave, and has been since he was orphaned as a child. His horse-whispering ways catch the attention of Cassia (Emily Browning), the well-off daughter of an upper-crust merchant couple, Severus and Aurelia (Jared Harris and Carrie-Anne Moss). Cassia has recently returned to her coastal hometown, disenchanted, from a trip to Rome, where she inadvertently picked up an unwanted suitor in the form of Corvus (Kiefer Sutherland), a sleazy and corrupt senator who, wouldn’t you know it, murdered Milo’s family in front of him so many years ago.
Milo and Cassia making eyes at one another does not at all please Corvus, who seems really focused on putting a ring on it (it being Cassia). Placed on the gladiator track, Milo is slated for a lethal showdown with Atticus (Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje), the reigning champion of local deathsport-entertainment. Before they can have a go at the whole mortal-stabby thing, though, they fall under the spell of manly begrudging respect. Oh, and then the gurgling volcano overlooking Pompeii, Mount Vesuvius, erupts, meaning Milo has to fight his way out of the public arena and through a city raining down hellfire, in order to save Cassia and settle his emotional tab with Corvus.
Taken of a piece and by itself, a sequence like the one in which Milo and Atticus band together with other slave-fighters to fend off an ordained gladiatorial execution has a certain cathartic charge. And advances in technology allow for an engaging and detailed aerial portrait of Pompeii, which Anderson further indulges with some high-angle, 3-D representations of city life.
But Pompeii overall exhibits such a staggering misappropriation of time and focus as to almost defy belief. The characters here are all tissue-paper-thin, and the dialogue hammy and tone-deaf; screenwriters Janet Scott Batchler, Lee Batchler and Michael Robert Johnson seem hell-bent on concentrating solely on the least interesting and most ridiculous aspects of their hodgepodge. (Watching Pompeii, one would think that Milo and Atticus’ uneasy friendship spelled the end of any and all racial tensions for all of humankind.) The wrong-side-of-the-tracks love story? A snooze. Generic political intrigue? Boring. The sociopathic need on the part of Corvus to get very specifically up in the garments of a young woman not interested in him? Even more yawn-inducing.
And yet that, along with the overly familiar sword-and-sandal slave stuff, accounts for around 70 minutes of Pompeii. In history books there’s a volcano that unleashed rivers of lava and destroyed an entire vibrant city of around 20,000, but here it’s reduced to just one big concluding set piece to underscore Corvus’ assholishness, and rendered to boot in overly slick tones that neuters any sense of gobsmacked doom. There’s a posed quality to almost of its scenes, so that even the nightmares that plague Milo don’t cling or leave a mark.
It’s arguable as to whether this story would have by default been better served with a R rating, but one thing is absolutely certain — Pompeii is a preposterous movie whose self-seriousness and time spent dawdling on irrelevant diversions makes it a dreary, wearying experience. Viewers know the ending already (or should, at least), and the way that Anderson orchestrates things, it can’t come soon enough in this misbegotten mishmash. For the movie’s trailer, click here. (TriStar/FilmDistrict, PG-13, 98 minutes)
Topher Grace, Genesis Rodriguez Find a Home
Genesis Rodriguez and Topher Grace have signed on to the supernatural thriller Home, per the Wrap. The film, to be helmed by The Last House on the Left director Dennis Iliadis and distributed by Universal, centers on a young man who inherits a mansion from his deceased parents, and starts to suspect that it’s haunted after a series of strange and disturbing events… including his discovery of the existence of property taxes. That last part may or may not be true, I’m not sure.
Jennifer Aniston In Talks To Become a Mean Mom
After having success with the New Line comedies Horrible Bosses and We’re the Millers, Jennifer Aniston is looking to turn a hat trick with the studio, according to the Wrap, by grabbing a lead role in Beth McCarthy-Miller’s adaptation of Mean Girls author Rosalind Wiseman’s book about competitive parenting in the suburbs. Tentatively titled Mean Moms, the film is being produced through Offspring Entertainment; it has yet to be officially green lit, but if Aniston, who is currently in talks, closes a deal, it would seem likely to be fast-tracked.
Reaching for the Moon
A smart, sophisticated, well-ordered romantic drama set mostly against the backdrop of well-off and carefree Brazil in the 1950s, director Bruno Barreto‘s Reaching for the Moon is built around an engagingly melancholic turn from Miranda Otto as real-life American poet Elizabeth Bishop. Yet this isn’t a typically showy awards-bait type of film; it benefits from its subject’s lesser known stature, as well as nicely interwoven ribbons of restraint and intelligence, which help cast a light on the less frequently discussed nature of restive ambivalence that can often be a part of the creative process.
Grappling with depression and writer’s block, Bishop (Otto) decides to leave New York City in the winter of 1951, and travel to Rio de Janeiro to visit an old American ex-pat college friend, Mary Morse (Tracy Middendorf). There, on the sprawling rural estate Mary shares with her bohemian partner of more than a decade, Brazilian architect Lota de Macedo Soares (Glória Pires), Bishop settles in for a short stay, planning to head to other ports in South America after five days. Instead, an unlikely love affair with Lota blossoms, and the years slip away. Various obstacles — including Bishop’s ongoing fight with alcoholism, a national military coup and the awkward reintegration of Mary into their lives, along with her adoption of a baby with Lota — tatter and fray their relationship, but Bishop and Lota retain a bond that lasts well into the 1960s, before its tragic end.
Inspired by the nonfiction book Rare and Commonplace Flowers, by Carmen Lucia de Oliveira, Reaching for the Moon eschews a lot of the stodgy stumbling blocks that weigh down period piece dramas by simply refusing to be pinned down. Is this a Sapphic love triangle, a more straightforward biopic of Bishop, a South American political drama, or a bit of all three? Barreto and screenwriters Matthew Chapman, Julie Sayres and Carolina Kotscho find ways to illuminate Bishop’s stature (a phone call from Aldous Huxley after having received word of winning the Pulitzer Prize), but don’t get bogged down in hero worship. In fact, their movie is as much about the anxiety surrounding creativity as any actual works of art.
In this regard, the movie’s fairly conservative budget works to its advantage, ensuring a relatively compressed timeline and narrative focus. The film, Barreto’s nineteenth, is stately throughout, from Marcelo Zarvos’ quietly seductive score to cinematographer Mauro Pinheiro savvy touch with both lush landscapes and spatial relationships, the latter of which fluctuate to help illustrate at first burgeoning and then dwindling intimacy between characters.
If there are shortcomings, one is that Reaching for the Moon only faintly touches upon Bishop’s gifts as a writer. Additionally, Lota’s family friendship with rightwing politician Carlos Lacerda (Marcello Airoldi), integral to her selection for important design work on the capital city’s evocative Flamengo Park, is sketched out in functional strokes that don’t do full justice to Lota’s strong opinions. The former limitation is notably more of a sin of omission, and will bother viewers mostly according to their familiarity with Bishop and/or their desire for a more clearly centralized main character. The latter failing, however, renders certain third act sequences dry and pedantic.
Pires, in her first English language role, is adept at wielding Lota’s brassy directness as a weapon. Otto’s performance, meanwhile, is a delicate and superb thing — and especially heartening since so many films with an alcoholic protagonist cede the entirety of their personality to that disease. Here, Bishop’s reliance upon drinking (and, indeed, even drinking to excess) is shown, but she’s a functioning alcoholic, and seemingly drawn to booze as a self-medicating attempt to ameliorate her chances at avoiding a family history of mental illness — something which the movie intriguingly hints at, but could plumb to even deeper and more satisfying effect.
Housed in a regular plastic Amaray case, Reaching for the Moon comes to DVD presented in 1.85:1 anamorphic widescreen transfer, with a Dolby digital 5.1 surround sound audio track and optional English language closed captioning/SDHH. Alongside the movie’s theatrical trailer, the only other supplemental feature is a brief making-of featurette. The film’s marketing as an epic lesbian love story may relegate it to niche status, even within arthouse circles. That’s a bit of a shame, though, since Reaching for the Moon offers up a lot of other things upon which to reflect. To purchase the DVD via Half, click here; if Amazon is totally your thing, meanwhile, click here. B- (Movie) C+ (Disc)
Joel Kinnaman Talks RoboCop Remake, Homage
Paul Verhoeven’s RoboCop, from 1987, was a singular work of pop art, blending together an intriguing sci-fi concept, biting satire, considerable action violence, social commentary and more. It sparked various sequels and spin-off properties and now, more than 15 years later, a reboot from respected Brazilian-born director José Padilha that uses the same basic conceit as a framework to explore the place of drones and militarized robotics in modern society. At a recent Los Angeles press day, star Joel Kinnaman spoke at length about the challenges of acting in a restrictive full-body suit, and how to strike a balance between homage to the original RoboCop and something different. The conversation is excerpted over at ShockYa, so click here for the read.
Down and Dangerous
A movie about a nobly principled con artist and courier of contraband invites skepticism if not outright ridicule, but that’s just what writer-director Zak Forsman’s Down and Dangerous is — an indie genre production, poised somewhere between self-seriousness and loose-limbed character study, that gets its ya-yas out and wins over viewers by virtue of its continued ability to surprise.
Los Angeleno Paul Boxer (John T. Woods) is said honorable smuggler, and he’s so good at his scams that he doesn’t need to carry a gun. When he loses leverage in a situation, however, Paul is forced by more violent, less genteel traffickers into concocting a scheme to bring a couple kilos of blow across the Mexican border. Naturally, there’s also a gal (Paulie Rojas) with whom Paul has a complicated past.
Down and Dangerous gets your attention early on, when Paul runs an end-around on a cruise giveaway on a tampon box contest in order to lure a woman into unwittingly serving as his mule. It tests that interest at times, but never lets it go. It may sound weird, but there are echoes of Michael Mann’s Thief here; Forsman’s tale apparently takes its inspiration from his father’s career in the independent cocaine-smuggling trade, but he’s interested in honor and uprightness in an interesting guise. When we meet him, Paul isn’t atoning for past sins or looking for “one big last score,” he’s happily working outside the law but with his own moral compass.
If the talk of integrity is at times a bit marble-mouthed or awkward, it’s certainly not notional — it’s interwoven throughout. This may make Down and Dangerous seem and feel a bit ridiculous at times, but it definitely also livens things up, and makes it different from so many like-minded movies. The film is also abetted by a polished technical package that belies its Kickstarter-assisted low-budget funding.
As for the performances, Woods has a withholding demeanor that doesn’t tip or bleed over into too-cool-for-school affectedness; he charms enough to get by, and likewise intimidates, but also operates with the knowledge that sometimes less is more. The attractive Rojas, meanwhile, has a chirpy cadence that summons aural memories of Penelope Cruz.
Forsman’s movie has a pinch of batshit-craziness (the idea of a freelance smuggling mentor, played by Judd Nelson, is risible) and I’m still not entirely convinced that its narrative unfolds in a way that makes complete sense, regardless of the material’s nonfiction roots. (There’s truth and “based on true events,” after all, and sometimes movies lean too heavily on the former, in efforts to bolster credibility that actually end up undermining dramatic engagement.) Still, there’s a weirdly dirty charm to this curio, which has more going for it than not. In addition to its theatrical engagements, Down and Dangerous is also available across VOD and digital platforms. For more information, click here to visit the movie’s website. (Artis Entertainment/The Sabi Company, unrated, 95 minutes)
Abbie Cornish Talks RoboCop
Did I have a chance to take part in a recent Los Angeles press day for RoboCop, wherein Abbie Cornish discussed making the film, and her admiration for director José Padilha? Yes, yes I did. The conversation is excerpted over at ShockYa, so click here for the read.
Hank: Five Years From the Brink
Documentaries about the great financial crisis of 2008 have been numerous, but Hank: Five Years From the Brink attempts to put a personal spin on the affair, providing a look at the matter from the point-of-view of embattled Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson. Directed by Joe Berlinger, the film offers up a humanizing and in many ways sympathetic portrait of the man, but such a free-pass airing and seeming endorsement for many of his decisions, as well as a lack of substantive exploration of their after-effects, that it’s vexing throughout and at times borderline noxious.
Hank unfolds chiefly as a decorated extended interview — Paulson holding forth in his raspy, self-admitted monotone, with liberal gesticulations. The only other interviewee in the movie is Hank’s wife Wendy, and so the opening eight or 10 minutes of the movie sketches out a loving biography of the Illinois-raised, nature-loving Dartmouth University graduate, and his courtship of the Wellesley College student a couple years his junior. From there, the film charts Paulson’s professional life in mostly glowing terms — making partner at Goldman Sachs in 1982, then rising to COO in 1995 and eventually CEO in ’98.
After twice demurring when tapped to become Secretary of the Treasury, Paulson accepted the position in 2006. The bulk of the film then charts the choppy waters of economic calamity, beginning with the sub-prime mortgage market collapse that started in Europe in the latter half of 2007. For three weeks in September of 2008, Paulson — along with Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke and President of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York Timothy Geithner — stood charged with preventing a total global financial collapse, by way of convincing bank CEOs, Congress and everyone else of unprecedented bailout packages totalling nearly $1 billion.
Anecdotes are few and far between herein (though Paulson does note that he believes the loud dry heaves from which he’s suffered throughout his life in moments of extreme tiredness and stress assisted in finally brokering a deal with Congress on the unpopular Troubled Asset Relief Program). But this isn’t a film of solid context and detail, either. Hank largely glosses over Paulson’s brief White House tenure in the 1970s — first as a staff assistant to the Assistant Secretary of Defense and then, from 1972 to ’73, as an assistant to John Ehrlichman — during which he would play a role in a 1971 bailout of Lockheed Martin. And his time at Goldman Sachs is described in only sunny, idealistic terms. While it paints him as a man of integrity not much concerned with money, the film doesn’t note that Paulson had to divest himself of $600 million worth of Goldman Sachs stock prior to becoming Treasury Secretary, so of course it doesn’t dare float a question about any potential conflict of interest.
More to the point, though, Hank has neither the stomach nor intellectual curiosity to ask many questions of substance. When it comes to issues like Bear Stearns stockholders being paid $10 per share rather than the initially offered $2 through a Fed-brokered deal to prop up JP Morgan’s purchase of the troubled investment bank, or, later, a direct injection of hundreds of billions of dollars in capital rather than buying up toxic assets under TARP, the film lets Paulson kind of skate by. He explains these decisions in broad strokes, with a shrug.
Letting his subject narrate his own story, Berlinger offers up a portrayal of a guy trying to manage, massage and mitigate Wall Street perception, above all else. This may or may not have been paramount in achieving economic stability (and there’s considerable evidence to suggest it was at least somewhat important), but some of the statements Paulson makes (“Complexity is the enemy of transparency, complexity is not a good thing in finance” and “None of us understood the extent of what we were dealing with”) without the benefit of any pushback or follow-up are rather galling.
Paulson tries to inoculate himself from criticism by noting that Wendy and his two children “weren’t fans” of the Bush administration prior to his accepting the cabinet position, but he also goes to significant (and significantly absurd) lengths to de-politicize the financial crisis in both its lead-up and most tangled time, praising President Bush’s access and engagement, though in only the vaguest terms. Hank seems smitten with and overly deferential to Paulson — it doesn’t press him on the issues of tracking mechanisms or other enforcement measures for TARP, so when in the final five minutes of the film he derides multi-million-dollar CEO bonuses as exhibiting a “graceless lack of self-awareness”… well, yeah, sure. There’s that, I guess. Was there any reason to be genuinely surprised, though, given their well-catalogued behavior?
Glass-half-fullers with an appetite for public affairs and political nonfiction programming may find intrigue in Hank: Five Years From the Brink, and reject the aforementioned criticisms as being not of Berlinger’s designated focus. There’s a measure of truth to that. But any film about the global financial crisis of 2008 that fails to seriously consider subsidized risk, the illegality of massive credit default swaps, echo-chamber thinking and, yes, lack of jail time for those who perpetrated this fraud is irresponsible at best and deleterious at worst. And that’s Hank. For the full, original review, from ShockYa, click here. In addition to its Los Angeles engagment at the Laemmle NoHo7 and other theatrical engagements, the film is also currently available on Netflix. For more information, click here to visit its website. (Abramorama Films/Bloomberg Businessweek, unrated, 86 minutes)
Director José Padilha Talks RoboCop Remake
Written by Eric Neumeier and Michael Miner, and directed by Paul Verhoeven with a hearty ribbon of satirical social commentary, 1987’s RoboCop is a touchstone film from its decade, as well as a pop-art genre hybrid — ultra-violent, but also surprisingly smart and thought-provoking. The new remake, starring Joel Kinnaman in the title role and Michael Keaton and Gary Oldman in key supporting roles, retains the near-future Detroit setting of the original movie but also uses the same basic conceit as a framework to explore the place of drones and militarized robotics in modern society, explains director José Padilha. For the feature piece interview with him, from ShockYa, click here.
Best Night Ever
Filmmakers Jason Friedberg and Aaron Seltzer have been accused of plenty of crimes against cinema in their careers, so one might not think that their latest effort, Best Night Ever, would necessarily hold much surprise. As the writer-directors behind slapdash spoofs like Date Movie, Disaster Movie, Meet the Spartans and others — overwhelmingly critically panned, all — they’ve traded in creatively bankrupt, stick-poke, air-quote satire for more than a half-dozen years.
And yet Best Night Ever is notable, in that it’s essentially the duo’s first nominally original, non-directly-referential screenplay. So does the film, a wisp-thin, gender-inverted rip-off of The Hangover and Project X, open in forced-outrageous fashion, with auto-tuned synth music and the black-barred member of a male stripper flopping about in circles? Yes, yes it does. And it’s almost entirely downhill from there.
What’s right about Best Night Ever pretty much begins and ends with the cast. The four lead actresses here have an across-the-board likeability and genuine rapport; each inhabit the broad constructs of their disparate, clashing personalities with aplomb, and bring a lot of energy to the proceedings. Unfortunately, after just a bit of early promise, Friedberg and Seltzer’s film quickly settles into a groove that is manic, nonsensical and yet also familiar. For the full, original review, from ShockYa, click here. In addition to its theatrical engagements, Best Night Ever is also available on iTunes and across VOD platforms. (Magnet Releasing, R, 82 minutes)
Michael Keaton Talks RoboCop, Acting in a Full-Body Suit
Michael Keaton, who costars in the new RoboCop reboot, of course knows a thing or two about playing an iconic character and dealing with the constraints of a full-body suit which concealed all but a little bit of his face. At a recent press day in Los Angeles, he discussed that, as well as his admiration for RoboCop star Joel Kinnaman.
The Lego Movie Notches Awesome Opening Weekend
Riding a wave of entirely justified great buzz, The Lego Movie topped the weekend box office with $69 million, easily outpacing fellow new wide openers The Monuments Men and Vampire Academy, which slotted second and seventh, respectively, with $22 million and $3.9 million. The inexplicably popular Ride Along pushed past the $100 million domestic mark with an additional $9.59 million, good for third place. Frozen held strong in fourth place with $6.87 million in its twelfth week of release, while Lone Survivor pulled in an additional $5.57 million, pushing its domestic total over $113 million. Rounding out the top 10 were bro-tastic comedy That Awkward Moment, with $5.24 million; the aforementioned Vampire Academy, a messy, unrewarding mash-up of different genres and clashing tonalities; animated kiddie film The Nut Job, with $3.75 million; Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit, with $3.53 million; and Kate Winslet and Josh Brolin‘s peach pie commercial Labor Day, with $3.18 million.
Ashley Greene Talks Burying the Ex During Set Visit
In December, I had a chance to visit the Los Angeles set of Joe Dante’s independent horror-comedy Burying the Ex, as it was winding down principal photography, to observe a day’s shooting and chat with some of the cast and crew. My one-on-one conversation with erstwhile Twilight franchise costar Ashley Greene, about the peculiar delights and challenges of playing a scorned female zombie, is excerpted over at ShockYa, so click here for the read if interested.
Love Is In the Air
From the opening jazzy riffs of musical accompaniment to Love Is In the Air, about bluebirds and the spring, it’s clear that director Alexandre Castagnetti’s French import, starring Ludivine Sagnier and Nicolas Bedos, is going to be a cinematic approximation of lives less ordinary. And so it is. Its story treads well-worn ground, certainly, but this robust exercise in romantic comedy formula has such pleasing, engaging performances and such a breezy, deft touch with push-and-pull gender dynamics that it escapes the over-determined nature of its final reel and by and large trumps most like-minded American product. Lovers of buoyant, improbable love stories will love Love Is In the Air. It has vivacity and enough authenticity to make us believe its sweet fabrications. For the full, original review, from ShockYa, click here. (Variance Films/Focus World, R, 96 minutes)
Cavemen
Lest one think that all the playboy comedies tangentially inspired by 1996’s Swingers, about entertainment industry aspirants and the “beautiful babies” of which they’re in hot pursuit, had finally dried up, witness writer-director Herschel Faber’s Cavemen, a blockheaded, sigh-inducing retread, starring Skylar Astin and Camilla Belle, that evinces neither any particular originality nor freshness of telling. For the full, original review, from Paste, click here. (Well Go USA, R, 86 minutes)
Rose McIver Talks Brightest Star, Accents and Ambition
In actress-turned-director Maggie Kiley’s engaging feature debut, Brightest Star, New Zealand native Rose McIver plays Charlotte, one of two young women that Chris Lowell‘s recent college graduate has a relationship with as they all attempt to navigate their early twenties. I recently had a chance to speak to McIver one-on-one and in person, about the movie, her new life in Los Angeles, accents and ambition. The conversation is excerpted over at ShockYa, so click here for the read.
Matthew McConaughey Inks For Sea of Trees
Matthew McConaughey, who’s surely shaken off the handle of clinically proven mildness, has signed on for his first starring role since garnering awards and acclaim for Dallas Buyer’s Club, per the Hollywood Reporter and other outlets. The actor will star opposite Ken Watanabe in Sea of Trees, a drama to be directed by Gus Van Sant. The film, penned by Chris Sparling, centers on a pair of suicidal men who embark on a reflective journey together — one that presumably doesn’t involve much mulling over why movies are unable to trust actors with beverage cups filled with actual liquid.
The Lego Movie
Discerning moviegoers certainly have many reasons to be wary of cinematic adaptations of toy brands. And given their enormous name recognition with the elementary school set, it would be easy to assume that The Lego Movie, based on the popular tiny interlocking plastic bricks, is little more than another slick cash grab with a boilerplate narrative and anything-goes sensibility. But the film, a smoothly blended concoction of spry sensory pleasures and considerable heart, is a terrific family-friendly adventure with sincere verve and pop. Co-directors Phil Lord and Christopher Miller (Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs, 21 Jump Street) mine a deep reservoir of genuine pan-generation feeling absent in most adolescent-targeted entertainment, while also working in sly digs at consumer culture, and paying homage to Legos’ enduring appeal to retro collectors. For the full, original review, from Screen Daily, click here. (Warner Bros., PG, 100 minutes)
Emma Watson, Ethan Hawke Board Regression
Emma Watson and Ethan Hawke have signed on for Alejandro Amenábar’s Regression, per press release today from the Weinstein Company. The film, whose storyline is currently being kept under wraps, is based on an original screenplay from the Chilean-born multi-hyphenate, and will mark a return for Amenábar to the thriller genre, where he previously had great success with the Nicole Kidman-starring The Others, which grossed over $200 million worldwide.
“I am passionate about Alejandro and his work, and am so happy to be collaborating with him,” said Watson in the statement. “I’m really excited by the challenge my character presents to me as an actress… I can’t wait to begin.” The film will shoot later this year, and be released by the Weinstein Company-Dimension in 2015.