The Flick Pick Monster

Cannes 2012 Award Predictions + What I'm Excited For

noreply@blogger.com (Nick Duval) — Sat, 26 May 2012 15:42:00 +0000

Palme d'Or: Amour, Michael Haneke

Gran Prix: Holy Motors, Leos Carax

Jury Prize: Beyond the Hills, Christian Mingiu

(I think these three films could win any of these awards; other possibilities for all three include Cosmopolis, Reality, You Ain't See Nothin' Yet!, and Post Tenebras Lux, as per other predictions)

Best Actor: Aniello Arena, Reality

Maybes: Garrett Hedlund, On the Road; Robert Pattinson, Cosmopolis; Jean-Louis Trintigant, Amour; Guy Pierce/Tom Hardy, Lawless

Best Actress: Marion Cotillard, Rust and Bone

Maybes: Emmanuelle Riva, Amour; Margarethe Tiesel, Paradise: Love

Best Director: Andrew Dominik, Killing Them Softly

Maybes: Leos Carax, Holy Motors; David Cronenberg, Cosmopolis; Christian Mingiu, Beyond the Hills

Best Screenplay: Moonrise Kingdom, Wes Anderson

Maybes: You Ain't Seen Nothin' Yet!, Laurent Herbiet and Alex Reval; In the Fog, Sergei Loznitsa

Most Excited for: Amour, Holy Motors, Reality, Killing Them Softly, Cosmopolis, Laurence Anyways (Un Certain Regard), No (Director's Fortnight)

Very Interested In: Post Tenebras Lux, Beyond the Hills, Like Someone in Love, Gimme the Loot (UCR)

Looking Forward to: Student (UCR), You Ain't Seen Nothin' Yet!, In the Fog, Paradise: Love, Antiviral (UCR), Polluting Paradise (Special Screenings), Sightseers (Director's Fortnight)

Could be good?: Rust and Bone, Moonrise Kingdom, The Hunt, Beasts of the Southern Wild (UCR), Mystery (UCR), Mekong Motel (Special Screenings)

Goodbye First Love (and Corpo Celeste)

noreply@blogger.com (Nick Duval) — Sat, 26 May 2012 15:22:00 +0000

"Goodbye First Love" represents somewhat of a narrative growth for its director Mia Hansen-Løve, whom last time out made an almost entirely front-loaded picture in "The Father of My Children." This new work is just as mannered (sometimes for better, sometimes for worse), but it does tell a story from beginning to end, settling on a slow burning release of its emotional power instead of putting everything out there in a jolting wallop and not having anything to show for it by the end. Hansen-Løve still has the knack for finding and isolating small moments of intensely specific human nature, and certain scenes in this film are as moving as the memorable shot of the producer's look of abyss before suicide in "Father." But, despite these poignant touches, I could never truly give myself over, feeling emotionally cut off by the polite, distanced style; the pleasing but misplaced soundtrack cues; and the (probably intentionally) lack of thematic rhythm or discipline (way too many alienating perspective changes, though it is good that we get to meet some interesting background characters).

I found the film to be most successful in its observation of the romantic behavior of Camille (Lola Creton), and how her gradual overall changes and coming of age can be reflected in her subtle moving away from dependence. We enter into her life when she's 15, entering as an audience via her beloved older boyfriend (and "first love" of the title) Sullivan (Sebastian Urzendowsky), who seems to care a lot about her (and enjoys the sex for sure) but still wants his own life separate from her. The idea of life without Sullivan is impossible to think of for Camille at this point, who doesn't have much of a developed social life outside of her tenuous relationship with him. This makes his decision to take a long trip to South America all the more devastating. The film's strongest section involves the two's final trip to the countryside, which proves erratic and summarizes both why they're perfect and wrong for each other. The moment where Camille, sitting opposite Sullivan at the end of a long table, crawls down a bench to meet him is remarkably tender and touching, and some of most life and reality that Hansen-Løve has ever put into a scene.

The rest of "Goodbye First Love" chronicles Camille's attempts to get over Sullivan and to start anew years later in a May-December romance with her divorced architecture teacher Lorenz (the excellent Magne-Havard Brekke), with some flare-ups of the past. But, as critic Mike D'Angelo observed, the lack of age difference between the 15 year old Camille and the college-age Camille is startling nearly to the point of distraction. The film looks like it was shot terribly out of sequence, as in certain moments the older Camille looks younger than the younger one. I guess it would have been an even poorer choice to cast a different actress in a slightly older role, but I'm not totally sure. Anyways, the film feels less in control here than before, sometimes trying to mimic the repetitive lifestyle of a girl whose life is consumed by an unreachable love, but also just feeling like it's just standing around, padding on (it's too long a film for sure).

A minor subject of the film is light and how spaces capture it. Lighting is the strength of Stephane Fontaine's cinematography, which is sometimes transcendent (examples include the image of the Camille and Sullivan lying in a luminous, subtly shifting forest, as well as the two providing a fading light to a Parisian darkness). It adds greatly to a familiar and uneven work from a filmmaker who's figuring out how to push herself, and who needs to change certain tendencies (like the bluntness of the extremely disappointing cop-out of an ending) before she can truly deserve the festival acclaim that she's gotten. B-

I have very little to say about Alice Rohrwacher's "Corpo Celeste," which hasn't really left a dent since the time I saw it a few weeks back, other than that it's trying too hard in its studied disapproval of the church. A lot of mileage is gotten out of the idea that the sacred is now profane, as if that wasn't obvious enough. There's some interesting imagery, and a somewhat involving lead in Marta (Yle Vianello), but the film overall is a bland time-waster, not worth devoting time to in this world where there's much more stimulating cinema to be taken in. C

Damsels in Distress (and The Deep Blue Sea)

noreply@blogger.com (Nick Duval) — Sun, 22 Apr 2012 04:44:00 +0000

Bluntly satirical and enjoyable, with punches of powerful sincerity, Whit Stillman's "Damsels in Distress" is a committed, considered film. Stillman has taken the medium of the "chick flick" (a la "Mean Girls") and used it to make his style into slightly less (yet still pretty damn) familiar territory. "Damsels" takes a close look at what intellect is and how it affects how people look at each other. The film considers two groups, the Damsels, a group of extremely contemptuous college students who run a Suicide Prevention Center, and "their Distress" (a group of men that ranges from frat boys to pretentious "operators" to hypocrites).

It pays most attention to Violet (Greta Gerwig), the leader of the Damsels, and Lily (Analeigh Tipton), the transfer whom she and her friends (Megalyn Echikunwoke as Rose and Carrie MacLemore as Heather) take in. Violet is a complicated story, very put-together, who changed her identity (she used to be "Emily Tweeter") and is sticking very rigidly to the new one. She feels a connection to a guy she sees as drastically inferior, Frank (a very chipper Ryan Metcalf), who is accurately described as a "moron." Lily, on the other hand, is relatable, the audience's entry point, seeing Violet in her sweet and charming turns but also calling out her often ridiculous sentiments. She's caught between Xavier (Hugo Becker, the least interesting performer with the least interesting character in the film), an older, manipulative college grad, and Charlie (Adam Brody), who's really Fred (who's pretty full of shit), who identifies himself as a "playboy operator" just as Rose constantly says of him.

Stillman is well-known for his archness; complex, "comedy of manners" style conversations; and dance sequences. This one encompasses all of those things, and it's a pleasure. But, unlike at least "The Last Days of Disco," which was a perfectly humorous but ultimately pretty simple venture, "Damsels in Distress" has some interesting underpinnings. Violet's aspirations towards a universal dance craze and her spreading of salvation via a bar of pungent soap show that the rigidly structured world of jocks and queens and waitresses and highwaymen is much more connected than it seems. These flourishes may just seem like flourishes, but they help "Damsels," rough around the edges but valuable all the same, transcend Stillman's normal trajectory. I was happy after having seen it. B+

On the other end of the spectrum is Terence Davies' 1950's-set "The Deep Blue Sea," a foggy, painstakingly put together tale with much subtext. However, it is of a piece with Stillman's work: it shows the director embracing some of his old traits (bar singing, jumbled chronology, beautiful camera) while trying to make a film in the modern day (by actually trying to tell a story instead of giving vignettes). Incredibly diffuse, it follows the love triangle of Hester Collyer (Rachel Weisz), who's almost committed suicide, her separated but importantly not divorced husband William (Simon Russell Beale), who still loves her, and Hester's lover Freddie (Tom Hiddleston), who flew airplanes in WWII. Adapted from a Terrence Rattigan play, I've heard there are some gay issues involved, and it makes sense to me now thinking back on it. Maybe it's worth a second look. But a week after having seen it I'm left with not that much of an impression, and it seems to be a far less significant work in Davies' ouevre than the remarkable "Distant Voices, Still Lives" (the only other movie I've seen by him). One scene, somewhat disjointed feeling, does work very well: a long tracking shot through a subway station used as a war shelter as everyone there sings what seems to be a traditional tune. But not much else will retain with me. B-

(Late) Cannes 2012 Competition Reaction and Preview

noreply@blogger.com (Nick Duval) — Sat, 21 Apr 2012 16:12:00 +0000

So, I know it's been a couple of days since the Competition lineup was revealed, but I haven't had the time to put down my thoughts about it. It is, in my opinion, one of the best slates in a long time, with many superb highlights that would stick out in bland years but come together to form what will be a very entertaining festival to watch unfold. (I'd never thought I'd say that about a lineup that has multiple Matthew McConaghy films in it, but there you go.) There's no one film that sticks so obviously above the rest (as there was with "The Tree of Life" last year), but I actually think that's better. With the opening film (Wes Anderson's admittedly terrible-looking "Moonrise Kingdom") a part of the competitive action, no day this year will sag with the boredom of delayed anticipation.

The lineup has a good deal of extremely-anticipated films this year, so many that it's actually pretty hard to process what's at the very top of the field. So I'll start with the films that look to be the odd ones out and work my way towards the cream of the crop.

Im Sang-Soo's "Taste of Money" isn't making me too excited, considering how excruciating his remake of "The Housemaid" was. This looks like the exact same movie. Oh well.

I can't say I'm chomping at the bit for the new Ken Loach film either, and "The Angel's Share" has the potential to be the next disappointment in the line that started with "Looking For Eric." The trailer makes it look like it was shot in 15 minutes. It has a slightly interesting idea (guy looks for success in wine), but it really looks like Loach hasn't stepped up the ante at all.

I know someone who worked briefly on it, but that only slightly raises my anticipation for "Moonrise Kingdom," the film that appears to see Wes Anderson delve completely into the bullshit that many have pegged his films to be his entire career. They haven't, though, so it's sad that this last film seems to be all surfaces and no meaning. It is Anderson, though, so there'll be a couple laughs, but I feel nearly nauseated when I watch the trailer, so I doubt that's a good sign.

Much speculation has been made about "The Paperboy" by Lee Daniels (director of "Precious"), which seems like it could be more than a little soapy. Unless it has the power of a Mo'Nique, I can't say that it'll be able to stand in the company of American cinema in general, much less the masters in competition here. It must be said, though, that Daniels is the only African-American director in competition, and though Cannes represents international diversity of some sort, much of the lineup is still white Europeans (and men; no women this time).

I've never been the hugest fan of Walter Salles. Didn't like "Central Station." Really didn't like "The Motorcycle Diaries." And now here's his version of "On the Road," which could be another problematic buddy movie or something great. Indications are towards the former, but maybe not.

And since I really didn't like cult favorite "Wild Grass" at all or even "Last Year at Marienbad" that much, Alain Resnais' "Vous n'avez encore rein vu" (a.k.a. "You Ain't See Nothing Yet") doesn't hold the same prospect of excitement that it does for others. But it's surely pleasing to see what may be the last film of this acclaimed and long-spanning career to be shown here. Call it the Godard effect?

That concludes what I'm not particularly excited about. Everything else in the selection is worth at least a solid look, in my opinion. That was exhausting to work out, so I'll just go through the highlights in rapid-fire mode.

A few past winners are coming back for more: Michael Haneke, who's following up Palme d'Or winner "The White Ribbon" with "Love"; Jacques Audiard, who won Gran Prix for "A Prophet", with his Marion Cotillard-featuring and not-outstanding-looking-but-still-cool-due-to-his-reputation "Rust and Bone," Abbas Kiarostami, who won the Palme many years ago and who put on a show most recently with "Certified Copy," with the horribly titled but tantalizingly international "Like Someone in Love"; Mateo Garrone, who snagged a Gran Prix for his exceptional debut "Gomorrah," with what may be in my top 3 most anticipated films, "Reality"; and Cristian Mingiu, the welterweight of the Romanian New Wave, Palme d'or winner for "4 Months, 3 Weeks, and 2 Days," with "Beyond the Hills." Also back from previous competitions are "My Joy"'s Sergei Losnitza with "In the Fog," "Import/Export"'s Ulrich Seidl with "Paradise: Love," and most importantly to many, Carlos Reygadas, maker of the sublime "Silent Light," who has supposedly messed around massively with narrative to make "Post Tenebras Lux."

Other notables include "Cosmopolis," Robert Pattison's first real role in David Cronenberg's well-casted, hyper-sensationalized Don DeLillo adaptation; Yousry Nasrallah's "After the Battle," which looks like it could be a sleeper and one of the strongest films in competition based of its relevance to Egypt's current history; Thomas Vinterberg's "The Hunt," which could strike me right even if "The Celebration" struck me wrong; the amazing sounding "Holy Motors" by Leos Carax (who did a horrible segment in omnibus film "Tokyo!"); John Hillcoat's prestige-y, Shia Labeouf-y, "Road" follow-up "Lawless" (previously known as "The Wettest Country in the World"); Jeff Nichols' surprisingly quick follow-up to "Take Shelter" and competition debut "Mud" (also with Matthew McConaghy); Hong Sang-Soo's Isabelle Huppert collaboration and absurdist Competition debut "In Another Country"; and, extremely anticipated by me and many others, "The Assassination of Jesse James..." follow-up "Killing Them Softly" by Andrew Dominik. Sure to be a great Cannes.

A Roundup of Sorts

noreply@blogger.com (Nick Duval) — Wed, 28 Mar 2012 22:36:00 +0000

(UPDATE: I will continue to add to this.) I haven't posted since last month and I will resume posting once I start seeing films in theaters again. There hasn't been anything to pique my interest lately, but come "Crazy Horse," "The Deep Blue Sea," "The Raid," "Damsels in Distress," and more, there will be reviews. In the meantime, here are some of the significant films that I've seen off the big screen:

in order of preference:

Le Haine, dir. Mathieu Kassovitz, 1995 (A)

Night of the Living Dead, dir. George Romero, 1968 (B+)

Young Adult, dir. Jason Reitman, 2011 (B+)

L'Atalante, dir. Jean Vigo, 1934 (B+)

Sweet Smell of Success, dir. Alexander MacKendrick, 1957 (B+)

Sangre de Mi Sangre, dir. Christopher Zalla, 2007 (B-)

The Tin Drum, dir. Volker Scholondorff, 1979 (C+)

Battle Royale, dir. Kinji Fukasaku, 2000 (C+)

Khrustalyov, My Car!, dir. Alexsei German, 1998 (C+)

Aborted:

4:44 Last Day on Earth, dir. Abel Ferrara, 2012

Chico & Rita

noreply@blogger.com (Nick Duval) — Sat, 25 Feb 2012 18:17:00 +0000

"Chico & Rita" by Fernando Trueba, Javier Mariscal, and Tono Errando, is a classic star-crossed lovers meets showbiz drama, except this one takes place partially in Cuba, has jazz, and is animated in a slightly disjointed, penciled style. Since it drops the ball in both its central love story and its general structure, it's lucky that there are details and subplots to savor. I found the character of Ramon (voiced by Mario Guerra), the agent of the titular characters, much more interesting than Chico and Rita's much-prolonged struggle to stay together that includes heartbreaks and other lovers galore. He's the center that keeps the characters together, and he does the same gig for the film itself.

The film begins with Chico (Eman Xor Ona), a shoeshiner, returning to his apartment, pouring himself a couple drinks, and listening to a song that he wrote to win a contest come on the radio. It's a nicely familiar opening that suggests a grand love lost. We come to learn Chico is an extremely proficient piano player, and that he had his sights on his collaborative partner, Rita (Limara Meneses), from the first time he saw her in a bar somewhere. She rejects him initially, but the two come to have a strained but at times incredibly passionate relationship that becomes ever the more complicated (yet in some respects simpler) when she gets whisked off to New York as the next big thing.

I can't be the only one who's seen this scenario enough times so that a story like this without any other perks is a lackluster bore. Trueba and his fellow directors and his fellow screenwriter Ignacio Martinez de Pison seem to at least partially realize that, so we get some brushes with jazz legends like Dizzy Gillespie, Charlie Parker, and, most prominently, Chano Pozo, plus a third character in Ramon that provides much of the comic relief as well as an additional source of heartbreak. But these are, in my mind, not enough to justify yet another take on this motif, one that "The Artist" to mined to just the same lack of effect. This one may have a chance in its category of Best Animated Feature at the Oscars, but even if it seems like one of a couple underground choices (the other being semi-cult-favorite "Rango"), it doesn't come through for me. The animation seems like a good idea in some ways (allows more freedom) but also somewhat of a detractor (lessens the impact; makes it into more of a curio than it should be). The style partially gets at the push and pull of precision and improvisation in jazz, but ultimately leans too far towards the latter, whereas the film seems mostly lost in the netherworld of cliches, hurriedness, and sentimentality, with an ending that struck me (even in late night screen of fatigue I had) as unsatisfying. C+

Coriolanus

noreply@blogger.com (Nick Duval) — Sun, 19 Feb 2012 15:29:00 +0000

Transposing a lesser-known Shakespeare play into the modern era seems doesn't play so well initially, but comes to pay off in Ralph Fiennes' emotionally charged "Coriolanus." He moves it to a modernized Rome that engages in an intense back-and-forth with a nearby city. The dialogue at the beginning comes off as line-reading; later on, for the most part, it enriches the proceedings. It sets the stage for some of 2011's best acting, which was criminally neglected during awards season. Sure, it's over-the-top much of the time, but that's what makes all the more moving in this case.

Coriolanus (Fiennes) is a general who wants to be consul (for those not schooled in Roman politics, that means like president/leader). He's valiant, to be sure: he fought a one-on-one battle with his most bitter enemy Aufidius (Gerard Butler) and almost won. But he also doesn't really care about his people, not giving them bread (or circuses, in this case). A rebellious force has emerged, led by Tamora and Cassius (Lubna Azabal of "Incendies" and Ashraf Barhom, respectively) and the tribunes they want to be consul (James Nesbitt and Paul Jesson), and they want Coriolanus out. This leads him to do some crazy things.

Also worth mentioning in this are Coriolanus' right hand man, Senator Menenius (Brian Cox), his mother, Volumnia (Vanessa Redgrave), and his wife, Virgilia (Jessica Chastain). These are the only three people in his life, especially the latter two, and especially his mother, whom he feels any emotional connection to. They also provide the film with its heart; without them, the film would be nowhere as poignant as it ultimately is.

The acting by the leads, once they settle in (so to speak, I have no idea whether or not this was shot in sequence), is essentially impeccable. So the problem lies elsewhere. The film drags a lot in the middle, and at times, certain parts make an odd fit with one another (especially the strange "Call of Duty"-meets-the-Bard section). The film does make an admirable commitment to its enraged (and, to others, enraging) main character until the very end, and does what it can to grip you. For me, it worked, not throughout, but ultimately. B

Contagion

noreply@blogger.com (Nick Duval) — Sat, 18 Feb 2012 21:44:00 +0000

The parts of "Contagion" that Steven Soderbergh and screenwriter Scott Z. Burns carefully considered are good enough to offset their occasional baffling missteps, but, all the same, what could have been a monumental work on par with "Traffic" ends up a passable, insightful film that lets up way too early. The subject (international epidemic) and its treatment (personal but withdrawn) seem like they could work better in a mid-range independent vehicle, where Soderbergh would have more freedom to follow the premise to its rightful conclusion. Instead, this is part of the venerable filmmaker's ouevre that tries to pander to the masses, and unfortunately, it seems caught between artistic risk/observation and rushed starfucking/killing.

The film, the structuring of which probably didn't the consideration it deserved, begins with the disheveled looking Beth Emhoff (Gwyneth Paltrow), on the way back home from work abroad in Hong Kong. She seems pretty sick to her husband Mitch (Matt Damon), but he thinks nothing of it. The same goes for people all around the world, from a Hong Kong casino waiter (the same one that Beth visited during her trip) to a model in London, who end up getting very, very ill. This turns out to be a fatal malady, and they are among the first victims of what will become a far-reaching, smothering outbreak.

Soderbergh and Burns decide to view this scenario from many different angles: that of the everyman, of the doctor, of the PR person, of the self-centered blogger. In doing this, they spread "Contagion" farther than it should go, at least in 106 minutes. (Add another part, a la "Che," and they'd be cooking with gas.) There's not enough depth to go around, even/especially considering the wealth of actors involved (Laurence Fishburne, Marion Cotillard, Kate Winslet, Jude Law, John Hawkes, and more) and it seems as though they realized this after it was too late, budget- and time-wise.

A lot of the details are sterling, but much of the overriding emotion seems off. To give an example: Mitch not only loses his wife and step-son, but realizes that she's been cheating on him. Then 26 million other Americans die. Significant, eh? Not enough so that he can't give his daughter (Anna Jacoby-Heron) from his first wife a home-made prom night with her formerly star-crossed lover. Barring one mini-breakdown and a couple of shouty moments, he doesn't seem to have a lot to say or feel, or at least not much that's shown on camera. The lack of care invested here is unsatisfactory. "Contagion" overall feels like it deserved a couple more drafts, to work out kinks and loose ends (and maybe to decide to make some choices like, perhaps, scrapping the synth-y score and not having non-diegetic music), before it was assembled. Because what's good is definitely good enough. B

Dragonslayer

noreply@blogger.com (Nick Duval) — Fri, 17 Feb 2012 22:05:00 +0000

A rigidly structured yet free-floating documentary of a well-known skateboarder on the West Coast, "Dragonslayer" is slight yet disarmingly even-handed, never reaching the judgmental or hagiographic extremes it easily could have in more cynical/reverent hands. Not only that, but it feels as though director Tristan Patterson has unparalleled levels of emotional access with his subjects, who seem at times to disregard the fact that a camera is trained on them (or maybe not?). Either way, it's just as rough-hewn and well-soundtracked as a skater would make it, and it serves as a thought-provoking treatise on the netherworld between adolescence and adulthood.

Josh Sandoval, more commonly known as "Skreetch," is extremely well-connected on his circuit, and seen as a generally nice guy who used to be excellent at skateboarding. Now, he's a struggling father who moves from place to place, getting some skating gigs, trying to put together money for he and his new girlfriend to have a good life. He still skates and he still drinks and smokes weed. His teenage years haven't ended yet; the only job he can land is at the bowling alley, and his lack of self-respect seems to stem from parental neglect (he mentions some turmoil at home when he was young; his mom calls during the film but his relationship with her seems strained).

The film is all the more involving for its brilliant use of indie music (so good there was an article in "Film Comment" on it), which is commonly used in skate videos. The music itself isn't quite as effective when separated from the image, but when the two are married, greatness ensues. But the film thankfully isn't all gloss; there is some real pathos and wisdom here. B

Oscar Nominated Animated Short Films 2011/2012

noreply@blogger.com (Nick Duval) — Sun, 12 Feb 2012 04:09:00 +0000

There was a packed house for this one, just as there was for last year's edition. A disappointment and comedown from the works of 2010, the bunch of shorts (5 nominees, 4 highly commended) one gets in this package is largely joyless and unsatisfying. No worthwhile entertainments or advances in animation abound. I'm overly tough on these, perhaps, but all the same, I can be utterly receptive when one of these knocks me back.

The only time that I was ever surprised and invigorated in this whole program came at the end of the bizarre, interestingly structured "A Morning Stroll" by Grant Orchard and Sue Goffe, which has to be the strangest short nominated for an Oscar this year. It shows an event in three different time periods, 1959, 2009, and 2059: a chicken walking past a man, knocking on a door, and entering into the blackness of a safe apartment. Apparently drawn from some New York Times story, the film appears to be a lame-ass "oddity," but, over its seven minutes, it charts the fall of man and the rise of zombification. There will be blood. I'm not sure I totally bought the thin plot or the trite vision of the future, but I was surely jarred in a way unlike anything else in either program. B

Some nice animation was put on display in Amanda Forbis' and Wendy Tilby's "Wild Life," which undermines its amusing yet somewhat aimless story with frequent and completely unnecessary messages about what comets are and how they behave. Apparently this is done to establish a metaphor that's finally carried out at the end, but it's so weakly pulled off that the film suffers mightily for it. An Englishman moves to Canada and deceives his folks back home by saying he's a cowboy. Instead, he sits around, progressively drinking more and more and falling into decay as the winter draws nearer. The voice acting is a pleasure here, and the brush-stroke quality to the film's look is splendid, but things never really feel together. I suppose that's the point, but the lack of overall cohesion (despite intense and annoying repetition) doesn't bode well. B-

I saw it at Telluride in 3-D last year, and thus I suppose some of the magic had worn off. But I wasn't that enthusiastic about Enrico Casarosa's people-who-talk-in-guttural-noises Pixar flick "La Luna" in this environment. Not only that, but the troubling phallic symbolism I saw the first time was all the more flagrant this time around. I may have a dirty mind, but it can't be just me who's noticed this (hint for those who end up seeing this program: it involves the point of a star and a hammer). We get the initiation of a kid into a timeless ritual that involves humans at play in the celestial realm. Just like every other Pixar film ever made. You'll enjoy it, probably. I'm downplaying it for sure. I'm just not that big on it anymore. B-

"The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr. Morris Lessmore" by William Joyce and Brandon Oldenberg is just as annoying as its character's ridiculous name, supposedly about what reading can do. Ultimately, though, it's really just a stream of images that have been drained of meaning. Dude in New Orleans who bears a striking resemblance to Buster Keaton gets displaced in Hurricane Katrina and finds a library out in the country somewhere where books fly and come alive and communicate by flipping pages. Certain scenes completely throw out meaning for the sake of a gag. I can sense there's some sort of passion here, possibly fueled by the disaster that happened, probably trying to show how people got through the aftermath by turning to the written word. That's all fine and good, but I'm not sure what it really says about that tragedy. C

At the back of the pack is "Dimanche," Patrick Doyon's child-POV tale of a Sunday with the most typically rough-hewn animation you can imagine. The gags, if charming, feel entirely secondhand, and, dreadfully enough, people talk in the blabbers which lazily depict the adult as seen from a kid's eye. The less said about this one, the better, though people seemed to like it a lot in the theater. C-

I don't really feel like writing up the four "Highly Commended" films, but suffice it to say, aside from "The Hybrid Combo", none seemed to be anywhere near worthy of a nomination. I was annoyed, baffled, and nonplussed by the other three.

Oscar Nominated Live Action Shorts - 2011/2012

noreply@blogger.com (Nick Duval) — Sat, 11 Feb 2012 17:39:00 +0000

The live-action nominees this year were a weaker bunch than last year's, relying for the most part on pure emotion to try to guide half-baked plots and decent technical facets into a successful product. They also confirmed an unsettling trend in the nomination process. The lack of thematic diversity over the last couple of years has been frankly stunning. The new template seems to be: 1) heavy-handed film (either about Irish-Catholicism or the Holocaust), 2) film about imminent death, 3) quirky New York set film, 4) film set in 3rd world (preferably with 1st world/3rd world conflict), and 5) a(nother) Irish film. This isn't worth getting upset over, just as the best picture race isn't, I know. I should try to see more short films, which are readily available outside of this package. But many will only see 5-10 short films this year (including the Animated ones, which I'm hoping to see soon as well).

Anyways, on to the actual meat of the review:

The best of this lot, the "quirky New York set film," "Time Freak" by Andrew Bowler, isn't even all that original. "Primer" and countless Youtube videos have gone here before. But the charm of the actors, the intense specificity of the idea, and the devotion to hard sci-fi logic, works some form of magic that I appreciated. Stillman (Michael Nathanson) and Evan (John Conor Brooke) are roommates. Stillman's been gone for 3 days, so Evan takes a trip over to the storage room where he's has been working tirelessly, to see what's been going on. Evan comes to find some disturbing truths about the nature of his pal's work (which hasn't been used in the way he originally thought it would be) and the seductive nature of getting things right via time travel. The ending, a silly punch-line, and the overall brevity of the short, detract from a solid short, one more challenging than your usual Internet comedy bit but still relatively harmless. B

One of the two Irish films is Terry George's "The Shore", which explores the time/space-fractured love triangle of Jim (Ciaran Hinds), Paddy (Conleth Hill), and Mary (Maggie Cronin). Jim, in the midst of the Troubles, left Ireland for San Francisco, leaving his fiancee Mary with his debilitated best friend Paddy. Now, 25 years later, he's making a return to Ireland, not intending to revisit the wounds of the past. But his daughter Patricia (Kerry Condon), learning of his long-buried friendship, urges to make a gesture to the people he thinks he "betrayed." The result is at times powerful and touching, but drastically diminished due to a lack of shading, a cheap and stupid undertone of comedy, and a wispy ending. Bolstered instead of padded, this could have been much better. B-

Drawing from the likes of Roy Andersson and Aki Kaurismaki, Hallvar Witzø's singularly titled imminent death dramedy "Tuba Atlantic" is ultimately touching but often very unassured and forcedly quirky. When Oskar (Edvard Haegstad) learns he's gonna pass in just under a week, he doesn't do a whole lot. He just wants to talk, or a least make a gesture, once more to a brother he hasn't spoken to in a few decades. That, and to continue killing seagulls. He has someone to keep him company, Inger (Ingrid Viken), part of some program called "Death Angels," designed to help people through their last days. They have a typical indie sort of bond that at times works better than the norm, but feels too banal to really succeed. Same goes for Witzø's short as a whole. This is not a voice that I'd really care about hearing a whole lot more from, but for the time being, this is decent. B-

The last respectable film in the group I had intensely mixed feelings about. Max Zahle's "Raju" is an interesting rumination on human conscience as well as parenthood, but it also peddles some troubling 3rd-world stereotypes. It follows the adoption of the titular character (Krish Gupta) by two upper-class Germans, Jan (Wotan Wilke Mohring) and Sarah (Julia Richter). Just before they get around to leaving, Jan loses Raju in a market. The two are devastated, and, while Sarah lies bereft in their hotel room, Jan goes on a search that leads to some horrifying ends. The moral aspects of the short fascinated me, and will possibly do the same for other viewers, but I was left with a bad taste in my mouth throughout, especially at the ending, which championed the German father as some sort of 1st-world saint. Add to that the fact that the filmmaking is at times pretty lazy, and you have yourself a problematic little film. At feature-length it would probably be intolerable, but here, it's distilled fairly enough. B-

And then we have the only real dud of the group, "Pentecost" by Peter McDonald, which actually is the first film in the compilation. The style is close to Tanel Toom's similarly themed "The Confession" from last year, but while that film was sensitive and well-acted, this is a broad, cliché doodle that comes to mean absolutely nothing at the end. An altar boy named Damien (Scott Graham) makes a gaffe and is punished (he doesn't get to watch soccer games). But he gets another chance at the behest of his father, and... that's basically all there is to say about the plot, which is as depthless as the Catholic types that populate the film. Curios like this can work, but not when they're this sloppy and idiotic. C-

Love Exposure

noreply@blogger.com (Nick Duval) — Sun, 05 Feb 2012 02:32:00 +0000

A complex, trashy, tonally scattershot, extraordinarily intelligent satire, "Love Exposure" is exactly what its title indicates: a 237 minute examination of the thorniest, deepest passions you can imagine. Unlike many filmmakers who'd try to pull something like this off, Sion Sono has a very good idea of what he's doing. He's chosen his setting and characters carefully and orchestrated the chaos with a deft touch. He's constructed a story that expands to spacious (though not as large as I'd originally expected) parameters and then contracts back to what would be incorrectly termed "simple." Nothing here is. Nagging questions get raised and, brilliantly enough, stay as loose ends. No one gets an easy way out. But no one is made an easy target either.

Yu (Takahiro Nishijima) is the son of two devout Christian parents. His mother, soon to pass away, instills in him the notion to find "his Maria," to which he sticks adamantly. His father, Tetsu (Atsuro Watabe, the most emotionally captivating actor here) driven by the grief, becomes a priest, which satisfies him for a while. That's until Kaori (Makiko Watanabe) comes into his life. And, as Yu notes, things change. She's madly in love with him and is tempting him away from the priesthood. She ends up leaving, which dampens the father's mood and turns him nihilistic and didactic. This sends Yu on a path to become the King/Prince of Perverts and an exceptional dirty photographer. And on, and on, with more characters coming into the frame and an intense love, make that two intense loves, make that three (four?) intense loves, and a cult, and...

The film grows ever the more layered, while doing its best never to abandon its center. I was very amused at times (such eccentrics as Tag Yuji are hilarious), but most often horrified and disturbed by the film's themes of reprogramming and rejection, sexually and religiously. The ending may seem like a relent, and perhaps it is slightly, but while giving an arguably unearned satisfaction, it also left me a lingering dread about a character's sense of free will. Submission is the fate for all, the film seems to be noting, and for all of its inconsistencies, minor missteps, and overplayed musical selections, this deeply affecting, unsettlingly absolute philosophy gives the film an unforgettable hurt. A-

The Innkeepers

noreply@blogger.com (Nick Duval) — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 02:29:00 +0000

I haven't seen a lot of horror films in my time, but I've grown familiar with the hallmarks of the genre like any general fan of cinema has. So let's just say after viewing "The Innkeepers" I found myself scratching my head over Ti West's ascendence in the indie world. I haven't had the chance to catch "The House of the Devil," to be sure, but West's new film is astonishingly bad and almost completely devoid of pleasure. I felt deprived a humor and horror fix. I may sue.

West starts with a very stale premise and does essentially nothing to enliven it. He then provides us with a grating, quasi-Manic Pixie Dream Girl, hotel staffer heroine named Claire, high-strung and annoying as played by Sara Paxton. Revolving around her are a series of badly scripted parts, only one of which works even slightly: Luke (Pat Healy), Claire's tart fellow inn employee, who gets all of the film's halfway decent lines. It sucks that even Luke's character has to devolve into cliche at a certain point. But that's just the nature of the film. West is said to draw heavily from modern horror classics in a sort of nostalgic way. I'd say it's gotten to the point where his own voice is smothered by devotion to conventions. And these conventions aren't even good ones.

So a inn is being closed after a last weekend, and Claire and Luke are taking a few more guests (including a famous actress-cum-psychic, played by Kelly McGillis) while also investigating the hotel for paranormal activity. Sounds like this could be kinda fun, eh? I certainly thought so. But the film is only occasionally mildly funny, and only occasionally mildly creepy. None of the plot hijinks work, and thus I was left drumming my fingers, waiting for what I assumed to be a backloaded scare barrage to bear its teeth. If you think the last 15-30 minutes of "The Innkeepers" are even remotely terrifying, I'd say horror is not the genre for you. Every scare (except for a final, very cheesy one) is tipped off either by the poor positioning of the camera or a character's prolonged reaction. Anyone looking for hardcore frights should steer entirely clear. "The Innkeepers" is to its genre what "The Trip" was to its own: it makes you wonder what "scary" or "funny" really means anymore. D

2011-2012 Oscars: Causes To Take Up

noreply@blogger.com (Nick Duval) — Tue, 24 Jan 2012 22:20:00 +0000

I'm nowhere near as involved this year in the Oscar prognostication business as I have been in previous years. My impulse to catch every nominee (my policy before) has dwindled exceptionally. I only saw the films that I really cared about seeing, some overlapping, some not. So, at this place in time, I'm really most interested in singling out the performances and works that deserve attention (that didn't get nominated) and deserve to win. I can't speak at length or in any sort of depth about the more critically maligned works ("Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, "The Help") as well as a couple I just haven't gotten around to seeing due to where I live ("Hugo," "The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo"). I actually haven't seen any of the Best Actress nominees, now that Tilda Swinton has been bumped.

Nominated Causes:

THE TREE OF LIFE - Best Picture, Best Director, Best Cinematography

Oh baby. Best film of the year nominated for best film of the year? That's what I call a good surprise. I'm glad that Fox Searchlight did what they could to bring this into the game (as for "Margaret," such wonders were not pulled off). If this film fails to win an award out of these three, I'll be very, very disappointed - Cinematography at least is a must. I doubt it'll take the gold, but who knows. I'm not sure if the film editing Oscar prediction still works (i.e. that a film must be nominated in that category to win big), but I'm hoping that it doesn't. This is a truly terrific film that deserves only the best.

George Clooney, The Descendants - Best Actor

My favorite male performance of the year, along with one that was unfortunately snubbed (I'll get to that later on), was given by this man, who almost made "The Descendants" into a worthy film. No other performer drew me in quite as much. He got off to a rocky start, but from a certain point onwards, I was hanging on his every emotion. I have yet to see Demian Bichir in "A Better Life," but I feel fairly confident in championing Clooney over the rest of the field (though I do like Jean Dujardin very much as well).

Christopher Plummer, Beginners - Best Supporting Actor

An Oscar-y performance, to be sure, but a devastating, human one that also fits in room for sweetness. People may criticize the McGregor/Laurent section (unjustly, in my view) but most are warm to Plummer's extraordinary work. If he wins, it'll be a great moment for someone so deserving.

Berenice Bejo, The Artist - Best Supporting Actress

As lukewarm as I am on the spectacularly overhyped film she's in, I must say that Bejo gives quite the charismatic supporting performance. She provides, along with Dujardin, the spark to keep the film from being insufferable. Quite a task, pulled off nicely; it's not her fault that the movie doesn't reach heights.

Asghar Farhadi, A Separation - Best Screenplay

So the campaign for Farhadi to get some writing honors did work. I've been underplaying this movie since I saw it at the New York Film Festival, with extremely high expectations that weren't exactly met (as it is a brilliantly-acted yet flawed piece). However, the punching quality of the dialogue provided much of what I liked about "A Separation" as a whole. I wasn't nearly as moved by "Midnight in Paris" or "The Artist," and I expect the same for "Margin Call" and "Bridesmaids."

FOOTNOTE - Best Foreign Film

Don't think we have to worry about "A Separation" losing to fellow SPC slate-mate "Footnote," but I'd be oh so happy if that were the case. Apparently the supposed lack of stakes got to some people, who've deemed it "forgettable" and "insignificant," but I found the film's ideological pull too strong to dismiss.

PINA - Best Documentary

The best use of 3-d I've seen yet. Not sure if "Pina" is a great "documentary" per se, but it's an excellent film experience, and I'd be glad to see it recognized in any category.

Snubbed Causes:

Michael Fassbender, Shame - Best Actor

Oscar chickened out at the last second on possibly the strongest performance of the year. I've felt less confident about it watching out-of-context trailer clips, but, boy, when I saw it at Telluride, I was blown aback. Far superior to Gary Oldman's work in "Tinker Tailor," and better also than Brad Pitt's in "Moneyball." I wonder if a Steve McQueen film will ever receive an Oscar nomination. I wonder if an NC-17 film will ever receive another Oscar nomination. A nod for Carey Mulligan or Nicole Beharie would have been nice as well.

Shailene Woodley, The Descendants - Best Supporting Actress

I care a little bit less about this than other snubs; however, Woodley is better than everyone in her category except perhaps Bejo. A second power supply for "The Descendants."

THE TURIN HORSE - Best Foreign Film

Better than every nominee in its category. Better than almost every best picture nominee. Of course, it couldn't get nominated, though. It's too rough.

Kill List

noreply@blogger.com (Nick Duval) — Sat, 21 Jan 2012 00:17:00 +0000

I'd say I understood about 50-65% of the dialogue in Ben Wheatley's "Kill List," which perhaps seems like a disqualifying factor. But it's not my fault that a) the actors have thick British accents and that b) the sound recording is utterly atrocious. Maybe people who catch everything that's said will enjoy this movie more. However, some of the biggest pieces of this extremely disturbing work can be easily understood: a brutal beating by hammer, much hand slashing, a simply horrific final scene. I haven't seen a movie this genuinely debased in a while. Then again, I don't watch a whole bunch of horror films.

Wheatley has the materials for an unforgettable movie here. He unfortunately can't pull them together very well at all. The film is almost entirely backloaded. The first 45 minutes of the film meander under the pretense of character development. Then, after a certain point, things begin to ratchet up. That's all great, but at that point the filmmaking gets even lazier conceptually (plus a lot more incoherent) and only manages to work viscerally. Only the last 10-15 minutes, as seriously messed up as they are, shock something into the film. The only problem is, they also don't really hold up dramatically (i.e. it's near impossible to tell what the hell's happening at times; it feels too purposely obscured).

We follow retired, aggressive contact killer named Jay (Neil Maskell) who continuously lashes out at his wife with less and less regard for his young son. Their financial resources have been drying up ever since his last hit and his memories of his profession as well as his time spent in Iraq are beginning to really harass him. A dinner party with his work partner and best friend Gal (Michael Smiley) and his girlfriend Fiona (Emma Fryer) seems inserted to show the wildly fluctuating moods: everyone gets drunk, but not before Jay flips out and throws the table over.

Work must be found, and soon enough, Jay and Gal get employment from an unnamed Client (Struan Rodger). They're sent off to a kill a few folks, the reasoning behind their being targets getting hazier and hazier as the film goes on. Jay starts getting angrier and angrier and less able to control himself when he's bearing down on his victims.

I can't say much more than that without giving the whole thing away. The ending came as a mix of "Ok..." and "Ho-ly shit," the two pole reactions that viewers seem to be clinging to. If the movie had been better assembled, it could be some sort of lurid fascination. Instead, as a mixed bag, it's somewhat of a letdown, not giving enough to justify what it puts on display. I'm curious to read more of the ideas people have about it, though. C-

The Forgiveness of Blood

noreply@blogger.com (Nick Duval) — Thu, 19 Jan 2012 22:48:00 +0000

A downscaled look at a violent Albanian family conflict told through the eyes of the oldest boy and girl, Joshua Marston's "The Forgiveness of Blood" is less concerned with the specifics of the instigating situation than with the aftermath. We don't even know if those involved in the brutality are guilty, but we sure know what it's like to be an oldest son who can't go outside to school. This approach provides for an interesting but often unexciting film that at times hits its stride but at others only hints at development.

A road, owned for years by one part of a large family prominent in a small town, gets blocked. A father gets very, very upset and brings his brother along with him to take of matters with this flagrant-seeming cousin. When this new owner winds up dead, the uncle gets thrown in jail and the father has to go on the lam. To avoid more blood spilling, Nik, his sister Rudina, and their two younger siblings are forced to stay indoors until a settlement is reached between the two sides.

Nik, used to chasing girls and riding around on motorcycles, is now forced into a father figure role and also into intense boredom (which he at times tries to escape). Rudina, due to unwritten rules about not being able to harm females, is elected to take on the job of selling bread to help the family out. Both are stifled by these limitations, and a lot of the movie is in observing how fortunes can turn so fast. One minute you're asking your father if you can go shopping with your friends, the next you're trying to sell your horse to make ends meet.

The ending comes as a mildly devastating shock but hits a note maybe a bit too flat. The whole enterprise isn't overwhelmingly strong, but the soft-focus-heavy cinematography (becoming a staple of Marston's films) and screenplay (a solid choice for the award at Berlin, though "A Separation" may have been better) help keep things together. B-

Moneyball

noreply@blogger.com (Nick Duval) — Wed, 18 Jan 2012 00:46:00 +0000

Bennett Miller's "Moneyball" is very much about baseball. Admittedly it's less about the actual games than what goes on behind the scenes. Still, I'm surprised that people thought that the film was hardly a sports movie. As a huge baseball fan, it was a treat to get an approximation of off-the-field politics involving many players that I know pretty well. That doesn't make it a great film or anything (it ain't, ultimately), but it must be said that there were pleasures.

Following general manager Billy Beane's (Brad Pitt) radical, sabermetric-influenced re-imagining of his Oakland A's ballclub following a disappointing 2001 season, "Moneyball" examines what makes a championship team. The scouts believe that using practical knowledge of the game trumps all other strategies. Others, such as Peter Brandt (Jonah Hill), think that paying close attention to statistics can yield an incredibly fruitful organization. Both sides definitely have their ups and downs.

Juxtaposed against the present is Beane's past, where he, as a top prospect, took a major league contract over a full-ride to Stanford. When he lost his confidence in the big leagues, he was left with little and went on to become a scout. It is mentioned a couple of times that Beane's intense adoption of sabermetics possibly is an alley for him to stick it to the scouts who lured him into what would become a dead-end occupation.

Elements typical of baseball movies abound, with some solid, at times delightfully obscure baseball action included. The ending, as well as the played-out game of the long winning streak, are pretty anticlimactic and feel somewhat limited. There are definitely spots of euphoria, however.

Pitt turns in a duly championed performance, not quite as excellent as some have attested but quite good all the same. Hill is not too shabby either, retaining some facets of his usual persona while stepping into slightly new waters. And it's great to see the singularly chipper Spike Jonze in a bit part as Beane's ex-wife's (Robin Wright) new husband, who mispronounces Jason Giambi's name. Speaking of the family-oriented business, the scenes with Pitt's daughter are touching but perhaps a little overdone. They sometimes, though, reach the same sort of romanticism (a term much invoked by Pitt) as the baseball, which I see in retrospect as pretty intentional. Though it is at times drab and derivative, I'm glad "Moneyball" is able to tap into this grace at all. B-

Carnage

noreply@blogger.com (Nick Duval) — Sat, 14 Jan 2012 04:19:00 +0000

On paper I think "Carnage," taken from Yasmina Reza's "God of Carnage," sounds pretty interesting: a real-time, devolving argument between two couples who fight each other verbally rather than physically and who begin to see how really screwed up their marriages are. However, Roman Polanski follows up his excellent "The Ghost Writer" with one of the thinnest and least necessary motion pictures of the year. Superficial, monotonous, and strung together, "Carnage" is a tired, flat film almost entirely limited to an apartment that's supposed to be in New York (though with Polanski's house arrest, it wasn't shot there). As a result of that, it's pretty thematically limited as well, and the only kicks one can expect to get out of this come via the occasionally funny script.

Zachary whacks Ethan in the face with a stick in a park, and the parents want to sort things out. Ethan's, Penelope and Michael (Jodie Foster and John C. Reilly), invite Zachary's, Nancy and Alan (Kate Winslet and Christoph Waltz), over to settle matters and what seems to be a simple chat to set up positive interaction between the boys turns into much more as the guests stay to eat apparently horrific cobbler, drink coffee, spew bile, drink, and, to the annoyance of everybody, answer countless phone calls.

Sure, some of the satire works at times, and the performances are decent, but it's not really worth it. Whit Stillman does this sort of thing better. "Carnage" is certainly not worth spending a bunch of money on, especially if you're someone who doesn't see a ton of movies. C

A Dangerous Method

noreply@blogger.com (Nick Duval) — Sat, 07 Jan 2012 04:28:00 +0000

Though initially as captivating as Keira Knightley's performance, "A Dangerous Method" fails to sustain interest for 99 minutes. Just at about the point Carl Jung and Sabina Spielrein begin their intense affair, the film experiences a sheer drop-off in interest due to a more relaxed, less clinically focused pace and a feeling of fulfillment: now that what was inevitably going to happen happened, what now? The failure of director David Cronenberg and screenwriter Christopher Hampton to answer that question compromises what's actually a very solid 45 or so minutes and turns the remainder of the film into somewhat of a rote, hyper-cerebral chore.

That the movie works at all is thanks to Michael Fassbender, for the most part remarkably subdued here, and Knightley, for the most part remarkably and uncharacteristically out-of-control here. I've never seen Fassbender give a bad performance, but I've had my doubts about Knightley and whether she can really make a film watchable. Here, she veers sharply out of her normal range and tries something intense, with Russian accent and all. I'm not sure if she hits every mark, but as flailing, stuttering, and deeply passionate Sabina, Jung's most valued patient, she certainly leaves a big impression.

The film opens with her kicking and screaming, having to be restrained on the way to the hospital where Jung works, which sets the tone for the film's charged opening half. Jung wants to use his eventual friend and then bitter rival Sigmund Freud (Viggo Mortensen)'s new idea for therapy, psychoanalysis or "the talking cure," and chooses Sabina as his first subject. It works very well, as it unearths unsettling truths about her damaged psyche (like how she likes to be beaten). Jung is pulled in by her indisputable magnetism, away from his rich and frankly pretty boring wife Emma (Sarah Gadon), especially when a psychiatrist he takes on as a patient (Vincent Cassel) emphasizes his distaste with monogamy.

Adapted from a book and then a play, "A Dangerous Method" is extremely dialogue-heavy, which works just fine at the beginning but ends up getting to be a little bit too much towards the ending. The film is also awkwardly edited and sequenced; very few scenes feel as if they follow each other naturally. I also felt as though it got increasingly less characteristic of Cronenberg as it went on. Some say it's not like him at all, but for me the beginning seems like a pretty snug fit in his oeuvre (even though I've only seen "A History of Violence"). Later on, however, as the score gets more and more generic and the plotting more and more disjointed, "A Dangerous Method" hardly feels distinct at all. C+

Mission : Impossible - Ghost Protocol

noreply@blogger.com (Nick Duval) — Wed, 04 Jan 2012 03:24:00 +0000

Though there is tension in Brad Bird's "Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol," the stakes for the most part feel glazed over. The heroes and the villains feel so far removed from what they're to affect (missiles blowing shit up) that the film is only engaging on the level of their immediate actions. I suppose that's sort of obvious, but the remove at times is large enough to be disconcerting: for one, a character is thrown out of a window and the film soon forgets her significance in the plot, even though she's said by Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise) to be an "asset," and for another, the Kremlin's getting totally trashed is pretty underplayed.

I've only seen Brian De Palma's original "Mission: Impossible," which I largely enjoyed a while back, so I can't impart except via a small bit of outside knowledge about any cross-series references. This one is mildly satisfying, if not entirely morally coherent, mainly due to the magnetism of the four main actors, playing the last remaining agents of the IMF. It's fun to watch Cruise (even after all the freakouts he's had offscreen), and Paula Patton is solid in the only main female role of the film. But it's especially enjoyable to see Jeremy Renner and Simon Pegg in somewhat irregular roles. Renner was very impressive in the excellent "Hurt Locker" a couple years back, so I'm already attuned to his talent; to see him kick ass in a different sort of action picture is a pleasure. And previously to now I just couldn't stand Pegg, beloved for his Edgar Wright and Nick Frost collaborations. I'm glad that he's finally found a good vehicle for his jokiness; he makes much of the film in my opinion.

Maybe I was overexposed to the material going in, but I feel less impressed than most at many of the talked-about scenes. The sustained Dubai section is masterfully executed looking at it as a whole, but in certain bits (especially with Cruise scaling the wall) it doesn't live up to expectations. (I did appreciate the last car chase a lot, though.) There's less to the whole film than there appears to be, disappointingly enough, with a bland bad guy who turns out to be played by none other than Mr. Swedish Mikael Blomquist, Michael Nyqvist. And, with the smiley, airbrushed coda, the surreal tidiness of the film and the mission is jolted to the next level (read: not a good place). "M:i-4" is an appealing venture (I smiled), and a sometimes aesthetically pleasing one (Robert Elswit has some good moments shot-wise), but not ultimately a worthwhile one. The actors click, valuably; little else does. C+

Mysteries of Lisbon

noreply@blogger.com (Nick Duval) — Sun, 01 Jan 2012 03:24:00 +0000

I suppose I feel right now what the detractors of Terrence Malick's "The Tree of Life" felt when they stumbled out of that overwhelming picture. Raul Ruiz's "Mysteries of Lisbon" is a beautiful, painstakingly considered, 272-minute period piece that sags under the weight of its overused devices. The main one that I take issue with dominates the film: the story-within-a-story. The whole film is being narrated/acted-out-with-small-figures by grown-up Pedro (Jose Afonso Pimentel), but within this narration many characters take the time to tell their life stories, usually to the ubiquitous priest Father Dinis (Adriano Luz). The first time this happens, it's actually a story-within-a-story-within-a-story: Dinis is telling Pedro as a boy (Joao Arrais, the most engaging actor in the film by far) about his father arriving at the Dinis' orphanage and him telling about what happened to him. This is executed to dizzying effect (as much of the first 30-60 minutes are). But this narrative ploy is used again and again, and once you've seen it the tenth or eleventh time, you're struggling to concentrate on the technical facets to keep you from going insane.

The other problematic motif in the plot is the interconnectedness of everyone in the movie. We come to find that everyone is someone else's mother, son, father, lover, or belching pirate-esque guard. The appeal is understandable. This is common in books, and one of the big things people say separates this movie from others is how it actually feels a novel, like the one it was adapted from (by Camilo Castelo Branco). And the first time a character was revealed to be someone else from the past, it drew an "oh shit" from me. But, as with the layered storytelling, it got irking and corny to "Crash"-like levels at a certain point.

These two huge annoyances prevented me from appreciating this film as much as others have. Reminiscent (extremely so, in my view) of Lucchino Visconti's "The Leopard," it's a masterfully crafted work: brilliantly shot by Andre Szankowski with impeccable framing, invigorating camera movement, and excellent lighting, pretty well-scored by Jorge Arrigada (even if some elements of the music are used a little too much), and extraordinarily art directed by Isabel Branco. That's not mentioning the way Ruiz has with engrossing you that only abandons him at the end. And the story of a kid with no background who finds out about his history seems like it could lend itself to a dazzlingly immense production. But even if it spirals off in directions, the film comes to feel both too distant and then too limited. At times it seemed like it was struggling to keep moving. Some may make this argument against Malick's exceptional movie as well. Oh well. They won't be reached. I wasn't here. I can admire the skill, but the obvious, intentional emotional punch didn't hit me. B-

Tuesday, After Christmas

noreply@blogger.com (Nick Duval) — Fri, 30 Dec 2011 04:09:00 +0000

A schlubby, married banker is having a blissful affair with his child's dentist. He's weighed down by this deception, and feels increasingly distanced from his wife and daughter, who are oblivious. He's getting anxious; he knows he won't be able to keep this hidden forever, and he has started to become as insistent and controlling with his mistress as his wife (whom he at one point, indirectly perhaps, refers to as "Mom") is with him. The clandestine relationship has been going on for five months, and he still has no idea how to handle it. He seems to expect to continue onwards with the same arrangement into the distant future. But he knows subconsciously it's inevitable that he'll have to tell.

Even though there's not a whole lot to it in terms of narrative, "Tuesday, After Christmas" is a very hard movie to make. If we don't feel close to these characters, their personal business is going to be quite dull indeed. This seems obvious, but in a film with this sort of subject matter, immersion becomes ever the more important in separating it from other films about the same topic. That Radu Muntean has made as much out of this as he has is extremely impressive. He and his fellow screenwriters Alexandru Baciu and Razvan Radulescu know their characters (surprisingly, given that they're all men, especially the wife) and the relationships between them well and move from scene to finely tuned scene with incredible ease. He and his cinematographer Tudor Lucaciu have chosen to film with a muted palette and with not-too-showy long takes to give the feel of sustained semi-realism and despair (also: the cigarette smoke looks gorgeous). And he and his actors, Mimi Branescu, Maria Popiastu, and Mirela Oprisor, have worked to convey an almost all-encompassing feeling of naturalism; this may be the single most important element of the film, and the whole works only as much as the actors allow it to (which is to say, pretty darn well).

There are a number of smart choices made with regards to the plot details. Setting it at Christmastime creates a parallel between the illusion of Santa to the daughter and the illusion of the affair. In some ways, revealing the fabrication would be just as heartbreaking in each case. Another particular that Muntean plays close attention to is the occupations of the leads. This is most important in the case of the women. Having the mistress be a family doctor sets up an interesting, awkward, and beautifully executed scene in which the parents come to take their daughter to get her braces put on. This moment gets added resonance later on, but is even at the time a telling and overtly choreographed episode. Coming back to the idea of jobs, having the wife work in the courts (presumably as a lawyer) gives her a sheen of precision and a range of knowledge of how to take people down. This, balanced with her often informal demeanor, makes her (at least to me) a recognizable type and a full character. A stronger character than the mistress, I must say, though not overwhelmingly so.

These characters could fail to work off paper. This is not the case, though, because the performers have the abilities required to make them believable. Branescu (who had a role in the exceptional "Outbound") is able to show Paul the banker's isolation, unhappiness, naive defensiveness, and anxiety quite well, even if at times he looks a little unsure (probably the character). Popiastu, given the weakest role and the least number of scenes to bring things together, does what she can with it anyways with charm and agitation, though it isn't entirely convincing. The best performance here is by Oprisor, who gives us both ends of her emotional spectrum to devastating effect. These three, plus the actress who plays Popiastu's mother (I can't find her name), make the film constricting and absorbing (while the actors playing Branescu's parents provide a comic interest). Brilliantly sequenced, with flaws only due to characterization and the resulting portrayal, "Tuesday, After Christmas" definitely fits securely into the rich, remarkable Romanian New Wave. B+

Is Dragos Bucur's character Cristi a holdover from "Police, Adjective"? An in-joke or cameo of some sort? Just a bit strange to give the character the same name.

Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy

noreply@blogger.com (Nick Duval) — Thu, 29 Dec 2011 04:13:00 +0000

Drab, obfuscated, and dense, "Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy," Tomas Alfredson's equally gray and dreary follow-up to "Let the Right One In," only really grabbed my attention due to the mystery at its core and certain interesting subplots, when Alfredson stops holding us at arm's length and brings us in. The look of the film, minus the astonishing conference room set, essentially washed over me (though the commitment to ambience is admirable) and didn't get any sort of rise out of my visually attuned side, and a few of the actors are dull as dishwater, annoying (Colin Firth, looking at you), or histrionic (Benedict Cumberbatch is the only one who fits all of those). But ultimately, the film ends up overcoming its shortcomings by building many mini-universes and then having them devastatingly blend into one whole.

I wouldn't feel too bad if you find it a little hard to piece together this film while you're watching. It's a complex picture, taken from source material by big water-muddier John le Carré. A meeting gone awry in Budapest is far from what it seems originally, where it's hard to tell who's connected to whom and who's setting up whom (if at all) and what the significance of this event is. (All does come to be explained, maybe even a little too thoroughly.) The experience of watching the film involves both keeping up with what's currently happening on screen and making sure you understand that's come before. This may be irritating to some; some proponents of the movie have neglected to understand this.

The film follows the efforts of dismissed operative George Smiley (Gary Oldman, solid but 90% flavorless) and his still-in-the-system assistant Peter Guillam (Cumberbatch) to track down a double agent high up in "the Circus" (i.e. MI6). I found their antics (and Smiley's day-to-day life) relatively uninteresting, and was much more enthralled by the people they come into contact with. The most prominent one is Ricki Tarr (an engaging Tom Hardy), who, on a dead-end assignment, ended up finding some extremely valuable information via his observation target's abused wife Irina (Svetlana Khodchenkova), who becomes his love interest. Also involving is Jim Prideaux (Mark Strong), mostly because it's surprising what happens with him.

Though what transpires eventually is affecting and thought-provoking, and though the film feels like it has much to it, much of it is tedious and muddled (in plot and in assembly), with one Christmas party scene used as a flashback maybe a few more times than necessary. The last song in the film threatens to drench the film in nauseating Style as well. I can understand what people appreciate about "Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy" but I have a hard time loving the film to the degree that some do. B-

Rise of the Planet of the Apes

noreply@blogger.com (Nick Duval) — Wed, 28 Dec 2011 21:07:00 +0000

Rupert Wyatt's well-directed "Rise of the Planet of the Apes," built on a terrific motion capture performance by Andy Serkis, is a fast-paced, rousing downer that relies more on gestures than dialogue. There's much high concept chatter, but the film brilliantly uses restraint with words for many of its plot points and poignant moments. Along these same lines, as it goes on, it places much more emphasis on the titular animals than on the humans surrounding them, and is all the better for it. It might have been nice for James Franco and Freida Pinto (who is given little room here as his veterinarian girlfriend) to have a couple of scenes not worrying about his father or their ape (i.e. some character development outside what's necessary for the central plot), but I guess you can't have everything.

The film deals with the race to find a cure for Alzheimer's, led by a scientist named Will Rodman (Franco), who tests drugs on apes by measuring their intelligence in the lab. He's looking hungrily for a breakthrough that could help his ailing father (John Lithgow) and satisfy his enterprising boss (David Oyelowo). When an ape breaks out of the lab, the honcho orders for all apes to be put down, though a baby one (soon known as Caesar due to the Shakespeare bent of Will's father) is hidden and nurtured by Will at his home. This ape has inherited genes from its mother, who was given some of the drug, and thus it receives all of the many benefits, including a skyrocketed IQ. As you might imagine, Will, seeing this, gives some to his father as well and it works like gangbusters. But soon Will must make a stronger drug to combat antibodies and of course things don't go well from there.

The events in the film come relatively close to those detailed in "Project Nim," and thus the film gains a bit of topical relevance and, if you know the story of Nim Chimpsky well, some satisfaction. I really started to notice this during the emotionally charged second half, which is in my mind superior to the first. The final scenes have a tense and remarkable grandiosity, the scope of which impresses more than almost anything that comes before. They're a lot more thematically interesting than visually or acting-wise, but that's more than enough, convincing me that a sequel wouldn't be such a bad thing. The whole project could end up being astonishingly ambitious. B

Best Performances of 2011

noreply@blogger.com (Nick Duval) — Sun, 18 Dec 2011 16:17:00 +0000

I would pick favorites in each of the categories but it's just so hard to choose. Best Actor was by far the strongest field; in some of the other categories I reached a little bit for HMs, etc. Blue and bold means that the perf is from a movie not released in the calendar year that I ended up seeing somehow else. Classifications for "leading" and "supporting" here are not exactly perfect: sometimes I based them on convenience, sometimes on the conventions of the awards bodies (like Berenice Bejo; I would have included her as Best Actress), etc.

Best Actor:

George Clooney, The Descendants

Tom Cullen, Weekend

Jean Dujardin, The Artist

Michael Fassbender, Shame

Peyman Moaadi, A Separation

HM: Lior Ashkenazi, Footnote; Xavier Dolan, Heartbeats; Thomas Doret, The Kid With a Bike; Ewan McGregor, Beginners; Chris New, Weekend; Brad Pitt, The Tree of Life; Michael Shannon, Take Shelter; Andre Wilms, Le Havre

Best Actress:

Sareh Bayat, A Separation

Olivia Colman, Tyrannosaur

Ariane Lebed, Attenberg

Adepero Oduye, Pariah

Ana Ularu, Outbound

HM: Kirsten Dunst, Melancholia; Leila Hatami, A Separation; Elizabeth Olsen, Martha Marcy May Marlene; Anna Paquin, Margaret

Best Supporting Actor:

Raul Castillo, Cold Weather

John Hawkes, Martha Marcy May Marlene

Shahab Hosseini, A Separation

Christopher Plummer, Beginners

John C. Reilly, Terri

HM: Shlomo Bar-Aba, Footnote; Rory Culkin, Margaret; Michael Fassbender, Jane Eyre; Vangelis Mourikis, Attenberg; Charles Parnell, Pariah; Mark Ruffalo, Margaret

Best Supporting Actress:

Nicole Beharie, Shame

Berenice Bejo, The Artist

Melanie Laurent, Beginners

Carey Mulligan, Shame

Shailene Woodley, The Descendants

HM: Charlotte Gainsbourg, Melancholia; Sarah Paulson, Martha Marcy May Marlene; J. Smith-Cameron, Margaret

Technical achievements maybe at a later date. (Edits have been made on this post, due to performances being brought to my attention again.)