In case we’ve misunderstood each other….
…I don’t think Roger Ebert or Anthony Lane are hacks. It’s one of those things that really isn’t even debatable when you think about it. I revere Ebert’s work and read it every Friday when I should be working. Anthony Lane is an exceptional writer, but I kind of support the cliched suspicion that he might not, deep down, actually like movies. I was re-reading that bit earlier this morning and was concerned as to how clearly tongue in cheek that pronouncement of mine was.
Roger and Tony can now breathe easy again.
Year of the Dog (2007)
I generally enjoy screenwriter Mike White’s skewed genre tweakings; particularly his inspirational teacher who’s equally inspired by his students film (School of Rock) and the kinky, admirably gonzo buddy movie Chuck and Buck. With Year of the Dog, White has also assumed directorial responsibilities, and the film would appear to be taking a page out of the Alexander Payne play book in using a common bit of domestic heartbreak as a tragi-comic signifier of larger things.
An admirable ambition. Alexander Payne, after only a few films, is one of the great voices of modern comedy. The trouble is that that sort of thing doesn’t really jive with Mike White’s voice, which leans more on the broader stereotype from Hell side. White has tempered his yuppie outrage here with a bit of Payneish empathy, and that doesn’t do him any favors. White cancels himself out with Year of the Dog, and the result is a film you’ll barely remember one way or the other a few days later.
It begins promisingly with a quiet, wrenching opening: Peggy (Molly Shannon), an obvious problem case with other people, finds her dog dead after he strangely wanders away the night before. White hits just the right notes of heartbreak here, and his not quite defined tone (is this tongue in cheek? does White mean this?) lends the film an underlying current of ambiguity that steers it from schmaltz.
Then the movie…well, it doesn’t go downhill exactly, it really doesn’t go anywhere. Year of the Dog coasts for another 75 minutes on flat characterizations ( further accentuated by White’s visual style, which is like a contemp slacker variation of Ozu’s 180 degree technique, everyone speaks to the camera) and unfunny variations on White’s anxiety of the damned sensibility.
The ending, in which Peggy commits to her eccentricity and essentially tells the rest of the world to go fuck itself, is also quite moving, but its because White seems to, briefly, be reconnecting to his own alienation wanderer thing. Mike White is talented, I want to see him direct again, but Year of the Dog doesn’t quite make it.
Your Humble Write Accepts a Challenge
I received the following IM from a friend* a few minutes ago:
“It would be awesome if Bowen’s Cinematic did a 31 days of Halloween.”
It would be wouldn’t it? If you read my site then you know how we usually do things around here: five posts one week, two posts the following two weeks (both of which are usually apologies for not having posted more.) A 31 Days of Halloween would require discipline, consistence and steadfast belief in the over five billion burgers served American way that more is better and well, more.
I accept.
Every day in the month of October there will be a review of a different horror film, past or present, on Bowen’s Cinematic. I have had one person express interest in doing a series of guest reviews on the Zombie genre, and I very much encourage that, but that will not count toward my promise. I will PERSONALLY do a horror review every day of the month, in addition to the other, current reviews (though I reserve the right to skimp on those if need be.)
So BC should be hopping in the Month in the month of October. And, if anyone else is interested in doing any guest contributions please contact me. I know at least two others reading the site who are up to it.
*No, the friend is not actually me.
Broken English (2007)
Broken English has two things going for it that most “I’m thirtyish, female, MARRY ME!” films don’t: a refreshingly vulnerable Parker Posey performance (though Parker Posey at all would generally be an advantage) and a firm, rare grasp of the panic that can set in when when you’re a certain age and realize that you’re nowhere near where you want to be in life. The film, unlike many women’s chronicles in this age of Sex and the City, is not a glib cartoon, and I respect writer-director Zoe Cassavetes’ conviction in the material.
The material is still pretty shopworn though. Our heroine, Nora Wilder (Posey), bounces back and forth predictably from parent to friend to the occassionally always wrong for her guy, in search of whatever makes her her, and for some sort of comfort that her life is edging towards something other than another hangover. An early passage with Justin Theroux as a vain actor hints at the edgy romantic comedy that may have been, unfortunately though, Cassavetes is more interested in pairing Wilder with a less interesting female fantasy: the younger, untethered Frenchman, Julien (Melvin Poupaud).
At this point Broken English becomes just as banal as the films its trying to transcend. The unusual seriousness of the picture, which I respected in the beginning, ultimately only makes the cliches that much more of a slog. It’s a shame too, because Parker Posey gives one of her least stylized performances here, she’s quite beautiful in her exposure. I hope she tries that again in a more ambitious film.
Eastern Promises (2007)
First, let me answer the question that all of you really want to know. Yes, Viggo Mortensen shows his nuts in a fight scene of staggering brutality. Was that the question? Maybe you actually wanted to know if the new David Cronenberg film was actually any good?
For the moment, and I’m reserving the right to change my mind down the road, I’m marking pretty good on my Eastern Promises ballot. It’s clear now after seeing the film what drew Cronenberg to the material, but I’m a little more curious as to why he settled for this particular script. Steven Knight, the screenwriter, also penned Dirty Pretty Things, a film that I found obvious and boring, and more than a little draped in un-fun, un-scary, un-perverse Oscar prestige. Nothing lowers the stakes of a thriller faster than delusions of the Golden Man.
Eastern Promises is a more effective and memorable film than Dirty Pretty Things, and that’s because Cronenberg injects the material with a kinky subtext of unchecked evil. The diary that Naomi’s Watt’s midwife, Anna, finds here is a bit like the ear in Blue Velvet, a naive hero’s passport to the id.
Lynch’s hero was, like many of us would or hope we would be, tempted by the pleasures of the underneath. We don’t have so much luck with Naomi Watts, I’m afraid. That’s a shame too, because Watts is one of the most unaffected, artifice free actresses working in the movies today.
The contrast between Anna’s personality (haunted, conservative) and wardrobe (tight leather jacket and jeans), seems to promise an object of erotic confusion that the film’s script doesn’t quite have the imagination for. Watts has proved, in Mulholland Drive, that she has the good girl lured by the bad in her, but here she’s Mrs. McGuffin, and its a testament to Watts’ talent that she brings it off as well as she does.
Viggo Mortensen, who previously teamed with Cronenberg in A History of Violence, gets to have all of the fun, and its the actor’s best work. His Nikolai, who with those shades looks uncannily like Ed Harris in Violence, is the film’s central mystery, an inverse of the his Tom Stall in Violence. I won’t comment on the extent of the two characters’ parallels, but I will say that Mortensen is an iconic figure of quiet, slow burn menace here. Mortensen never makes the mistake of trying to be a badass, which is of course the wussiest thing a would be badass could do.
Eastern Promises is structurally interesting in that the majority of the plot’s running time is dominated by a red herring. The film’s true interest remains at the sidelines, and we are forced to leave this world much sooner than tradtional films condition us to expect. Yes, Cronenberg pulls the fade to black three beats sooner than you expect gambit here, only much more is left in the open this time, and its a daringly perverse anti-climax. It’s thriller blue balls, the foreground heroes get what they want while the background schemesters ensure that the world remains a shitty place anyway.
There are other Cronenberg niches to be explored here: the tattoos, the shady not quite defined transactions on the sidelines, the seductive rot of night time London. All of this is impressive, and the first hour of Eastern Promises is confident and intriguing. The disappointment is that Cronenberg’s craftsmanship has been recruited to serve an underwhelming script. The plot points are obvious, and a third act surprise is an infuriatingly conventional bust.
See the film. It’s an interesting example of what a very talented, personal filmmaker brings to outside material, and its richly executed, but its, especially for a director of Cronenberg’s skill, not quite enough.
Trespass (1992)
Trespass utlilizes the talents of alot of folks whom you’ve most certainly heard of, but may not appreciate quite as much as you should. First of which, there are the leads, Bill Paxton and William Sadler, who play firemen who get in way over their heads here after indulging in the titular act.
Bill Paxton has become a bit more famous, he’s headlining HBO’s Big Love now, but he remains underrated. Paxton is one of the best “straight men” in the last two decades, grounding far out premises and characters in an unshowy, ego-free realism that gets better upon each viewing. I’m talking A Simple Plan, Frailty, One False Move, Apollo 13 and Tombstone among others.
The definitive Paxton straight man performance would be either A Simple Plan or the brilliant One False Move (both happen to feature career best work from co-star Billy Bob Thornton as well.) It should also be noted that Paxton can steal the show when he wants to too, and I’m noting his work with James Cameron and his performance in Near Dark as exhibits A-D in support of this.
William Sadler has popped up in Tales From the Crypt (both show and movie), The Shawshank Redemption, The Green Mile, and made a particular impression as a sexual deviate in Bill Condon’s Kinsey a few years past, but in general he’s never really graduated from the minors in audience recognition. Sadler has a great no bullshit voice, and lined, craggy prescence; he can seem friendly, accomodating and completely feral within seconds of one another.
So yeah, the idea of these two guys mixing it up in an abandoned factory in the middle of a deadly gang territory presided over by Ices T and Cube pushes more than one B movie heaven pressure point. It also happens that Trespass was directed by Walter Hill, the third person you should be familiar with, who does unapologetic, high throttle machismo like no one else I can think of who is still living or working. I’ve listed enough, but what the hell: 48 Hrs, The Long Riders (underrated), The Warriors, Undisputed, Southern Comfort.
I had watched Trespass in the early nineties while on a WalterHill binge, and liked it and forgotten it. I caught it again a few days ago. The film is, like much of Hill’s work, remarkably lean and devoid of extraneous crap. Paxton and Sadler find the treasure map five minutes into the picture, they’re at the factory maybe another five minutes after that. They’ve witnessed a murder at the hands of King James (Ice T) maybe five minutes after that. Obligatory talk of wives and other expostion isn’t exchanged in the kitchen in one of the men’s homes the night before leaving, its tossed off in Sadler’s SUV on the way to said factory. Hill (and writers Robert Zemickis (!) and Bob Gale) are pros here.
Trespass would appear to be a hybrid of The Treasure of the Sierre Madre and a more urban us against them action picture like Assault on Precinct 13. This film is canny in blending the genres, and divides our sympathies effectively. Ice T is quite good as the gangster King James, and the character has been imagined as more than just a representation of all that middle class white guys fear. Refreshingly, the villian here is actually smarter than the protaganists.
But neither are the smartest. That honor would go to Art Evans’ Bradlee, a man who happens to be squatting in the factory, and who turns out, much to our amusement, to be a loose approximation of the Walter Huston character in Madre. Evans gets the film’s very satifying final image, which refutes the annoying cliche that no one can actually get the money or treasure in a feuding over money or treasure picture.
My only real problem with Trespass is a needless visual gimmick where we occassionally see from the POV of a home video camera (this may have been a little more controversial at the time, being how close this film’s release was to the Rodney King incident) but otherwise Hill keeps all the various elements of the story up in the air, and flowing with ease and finesse. Trespass is unassuming, taut and tasty.
Shoot Em’ Up (2007)
To list the various bits of mayhem that occassionally occur in Shoot ‘Em Up is to imply a much crazier and more subversive film than director Michael Davis actually made. I normally find it bad form to work other critics’ opinions into a film post, but I can’t help it here. Why all the buzz for such a forgettable bit of bargain basement pulp? Why the great cast? As a film, Shoot ’Em Up at least sports an engagingly sleazy Paul Giamatti performance and a few bits of just okay gunplay. As a script I would imagine it to be barely readable, self-congratulatory trash.
It’s the self satisfaction that sinks Shoot ’Em Up (starting right up front with that obnoxious title), nothing is less cool than trying to be cool, and sadly, this contaminates the usually reliable Clive Owen as well, though, to be fair, I can’t imagine any other actor acquiting himself better. I generally dislike this sort of post-modern thing anyway, but it helps if your self-aware action satire is actually funny, or exciting, or sporting an observation of the genre that hasn’t become just as tired as the genre in question. Shoot ‘Em Up is rife with lame one liners, and the action, with the exception of a few bits of tongue and cheekiness, is redundant and lifeless.
And honestly, if you want tongue in cheek that actually bothers to tell an engaging story, re-watch Evil Dead or, more recently and more genre appropriate, the infinitely superior Hot Fuzz. Let the snobs who are too pretentious to admit they want a real action movie have this one, they deserve it.
3:10 to Yuma (2007)
I think 3:10 to Yuma was the movie director James Mangold had on his mind when he shot the star heavy Cop Land in 1997. Both films deal with an elemental man’s man morality set against a backdrop that doesn’t really give a whit about such things, and both are grounded in the old school meat and potatoes pleasures of the films of yesteryear. The kind of movies your grandparents say they don’t make anymore, but then again, they usually haven’t seen a movie since then to begin with.
Cop Land didn’t totally work. It had its moments, but Mangold’s sensibility seemed a bit quaint for a film that employed half of Martin Scorsese’s repertory (it bought into Stallone’s Marty character a little too whole heartedly). Walk the Line, another Mangold film, is immensely entertaining, but it left me wondering why a man as large and looming and conflicted as Johnny Cash was reduced to the same musical biography we’ve been seeing for twenty, thirty, forty years.
3:10 to Yuma fits just right. It’s kind of a square picture, and its not surprising in the least, but its unsurprising and square in a way that you find yourself craving after years of pumped up Hollywood “entertainment”. Sadly, a film that so firmly puts its eggs in one basket (”story”) very nearly qualifies as an art film these days.
We know the scenario going in. Russell Crowe is an outlaw. Christian Bale is the desperate man who finds himself helping turn Crowe over the authorities for an amount of money that would’ve been irrestible to most men those days, much less one who’s about to lose his ranch to corrupt townsfolk.
Crowe’s going to get all of the attention for this picture, he’s refound his slow burn authority, but Bale is the performance that saves the film, and keeps it afloat. On paper, Bale has the Stallone Cop Land part, the relentlessly moral, gimpy guy who can’t catch any breaks (Mangold needs to get over this relentless urge to stack the deck) but Bale has too much something, drive, electricity, to play to the audience in such a way. Bale explores the character’s less sentimental, more truthful, side and hints at an ego that might be the driving force of some of his hardship.
Crowe is most certainly back here (after the sluggish, hypocritical A Good Year) but the part of outlaw Ben Wade is a bit more catering to “cool” than Bale’s. Crowe gets all of the best lines, the majority of the better stunts, and (this is a problem) is not even really that much of a bad man. I know what some of you are thinking: Chuck is rebelling against complexity and shading in a film! No. I’m (mildly) rebelling against muddled storytelling born out of the ego of one of our biggest (and most talented) stars.
I’d usually give it a pass, but Wade’s “I’m a bad man, but I know it and I’m educated and sexy and only kill ones who deserve it” bit causes a few problems in the third act, particularly the climax. 3:10 to Yuma builds to a nifty us against the town shoot out, but you may find yourself contemplating the point of it all, particularly when Crowe could just call the whole damn thing off.
This issue is far from a deal breaker though. 3:10 to Yuma is a Hollywood genre movie that’s very well served by Mangold and his cast, and its as purely entertaining as anything I’ve seen this year. Mangold has found his nitch, and I for one vote that he sticks to it. Besides, star ego was as much a part of “Old Hollywood” as anything else.
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