Haywire

Fridays in January are for action films. That is just a personal preference and it seems that Hollywood tends to agree. We get a lot of releases at this time of year that are geared to simple, mindless butt-kicking action. I am anticipating my annual Liam Neeson fix next week, and I am not a fan of the Underworld movies, so this was on the table. The director Steven Soderbergh, has made a lot of films that I have enjoyed. Most of them are character and dialogue driven. They have clever plots and lines to make the movie flow. This film is neither dialogue heavy or full of characterization. I think you can see some of the limitations of his work in this movie. It is a good film, and the story is intricate but as an action film it lacks the drive and rhythms that most of us crave.

Ever since Pulp Fiction, I have noticed that movies and TV shows have employed time shifting story development on a frequent basis. Sometimes it adds to the drama as we anticipate the situation we started in, sometimes it is a humorous device to reveal how foolish the characters have been and sometimes it is simply not necessary. This is one of those movies which employs this device but has no real reason to do so except that it seems a stylish choice. Nothing was added by the back and forth jumps in the story and it made a somewhat confusing spy betrayal story even more confusing. Dramas and comedies can probably make this technique work, but action films need a rhythm to them and this movie never seems to develop any rhythm.

The main feature of the film is the star, a woman who is apparently a Mixed Martial Arts fighter. She has a striking look but is definitely not the typical Hollywood beauty. It appears that instead of casting for a actress who can fight they cast  a fighter who can act a little. Gina Carano is clearly a badass, She handles the stunts and fight sequences really well. There are several really well staged fights in the film, including one that opens the film in a dinner and another one that takes place in a hotel room. The hand to hand combat is brutal and realistic with the exception that most action films have, the participants all stand up to a lot more physical abuse than is ever apparent five minutes after the scene is supposed  to be finished. The main problem with the story is that it really just consists of one chase after another and then a fight scene. Because it is hard to tell where the plot is headed and why, the sequences feel like time killers until the next point of exposition. There is a lot of exposition. People talk on in long sequences without always revealing what the audience needs to anticipate the next action scene.

It was an interesting choice to have all of the fight sequences and most of the chase sequences occur without a music score to increase the mood. There is a nice low key jazz type score in the sections where characters are setting up the next sequence, and there is  a little bit of emotional weirdness in the dissonant score. In the context of a film that is supposed to be all propulsive action, it feels like a failed experiment. The movie never takes off the way the fight scenes and at least two chase scenes do. Also, the betrayal requires a much stronger payoff than we get, at least with the main betrayer. I did think that the final shot worked effectively and does leave something to our imaginations that should be pretty hard. There are several good actors in the film, some of them are under used like Bill Paxton and Antonio Banderas. Michael Fassbender who is on the brink of becoming a major star, has a long sequence in the middle of the film but only take flight in his big fight scene and then a later flashback.

Nothing about the movie should discourage anyone from seeing it if you are interested. I enjoyed it quite well. I just wanted to love it much more than I did. Last year, "Hanna" covered some similar themes and action but with a much more focused story. The style of that movie was much more interesting than this one which feels like a film maker, trying out for the part of an action director. With the Bond films, action helmers like Martin Cambell and John Glen, while not artists by most standards, managed to make movies that feel like they are constantly headed somewhere. Marc Foster, the director of "Quantum of Solace" was not an action director and it showed. We have the same problem here. There is a serviceable plot, a strong central character but a weak execution of the pace and rhythm that most fans of these kinds of film want.  

The Art Of The Modern Movie Trailer : Monkey See : NPR

The Art Of The Modern Movie Trailer : Monkey See : NPR

Here is a great article and podcast on movie trailers.

'We Bought A Zoo

Someone once decided that Christmas is the perfect time for a sentimental movie about family issues, redemption, or heartwarming comedy. It does seem to be a natural fit, and it is good counter-programing to the big blockbusters and Oscar bait that get released about the same time each year. Unfortunately for every, "Cast Away", "Lemony Snicket", or "It's Complicated", there are an equal if not greater number of misses. Films like, "Toys", "Seven Pounds", "How Do You Know?" have been big misses with film-makers that have proven track records but could not quite get it done. "We Bought A Zoo" seems to fall more on the side of a miss than a hit. There are a lot of things going for it; it stars Matt Damon and Scarlett Johanssen,  it is written and directed by Cameron Crowe, and it is based on a true story. Still it can't quite work because it tries so hard to be in that niche, it feels inauthentic.

The problem as I see it is that there are just too many themes and issues stuffed into this movie. There are two love stories for the main character, one for a secondary character, a father-son redemption story, a comedy about the characters that populate a zoo, an allegory about an aging tiger, and the little zoo that can story that contains them all. It just feels like this movie is constantly hitting you over the head with the need to be charming and to be loved. As a result, the focus of the story is hardly on the zoo at all, it is on a lead character who can't let go of the life that he has lost. It is a life that we are only given short flashbacks on, and we have to rely on the characters to tell us how wonderful it was, we never really get to see it (except for one bit at the very end of the movie).

One other problem I had was the casting of the lead. Matt Damon is a good actor and there is nothing he does here to hurt the film. The difficulty is that he is so good looking and accomplished that it is hard to buy into the self doubt he has in a lot of scenes. The one scene where he tells his children about meeting his wife, he says that the thing he said to her was "why would someone like you ever talk to someone like me?" I will put it to any women reading this right now, can you think of a reason you might talk to a guy who looks exactly like Matt Damon when he first approaches you? Oh and by the way, he is asking this while he smiles shyly and blinks those big blue eyes.

Things happen in the movie that only happen in movies, and they only happen the way they do in a movie. The story suddenly demands that Damon's character come up with a extra $100,000, after he has been spending without consideration from the beginning. Guess what, that amount of money falls into his lap at exactly the right moment and we get one of the defining decisions that the character keeps making in the story. Will he buy the zoo?, Will he kiss the girl?, Will he decide to spend the money that he comes into in the right way?, Will he finally open the slideshow of his dead wife?, Will he have a defining moment with his son?, Will he step up for the animals in a tough situation?. There are so many set ups and payoffs that it feels like a tennis match at times, Serve and then return and then again.

Crowe also highlights all of this with his signature collection of song cues. Some work fine but others are cloying or repeat the same sad winsome moment over and over again. People accuse John Williams of being heavy handed with an original score, Crowe manages to do the same thing with bits and pieces of contemporary music and classic rock. This is not a bad movie. You will be entertained and charmed at times. It is simply not a great movie and the reasons it is not great are always too apparent. Years from now, someone will have a hard time remebering this film, just like you probably have no recall of "We're No Angels". Another holiday film that tried but was just not worth keeping in your head.

Beauty and the Beast 3D

As I have made abundantly clear on multiple posts, I am a sentimentalist and a marshmallow. If a film moves me, I can take it to heart and love it forever. I did just that 21 years ago with Beauty and the Beast. This was the first animated film to be nominated for Best Picture by the Academy Awards, and that was in the days that limited nominations to 5 and there was no animated category for  feature length films. "Silence of the Lambs" won that year, but "J.F.K." and "Bugsy" were also up, imagine that for a collection of diverse films. I am not reducing any of my love for the great Johnathan Demme film, but I thought "Beauty and the Beast" was the Best Picture of 1991.

Today, it was re-released for probably the third time but for the first time in a 3-D format. I am really conflicted about 3-D, most of the time it is unnecessary and  it makes it difficult to enjoy a picture because projection lights just do not seem to be strong enough. Sometimes, the original use of 3-D in a movie, adds an element to the film that makes it really different and enjoyable. Films that are re-engineered as 3-D films raise my natural suspicions. That said, the Disney folks have found a way to keep marketing their films to theaters, despite availability on home video, and 3-D is boosting the reason to see some of those truly great films again. Last year we got "The Lion King" and now Beauty.

To be honest, the movies depth of color and beautiful painted backgrounds often made it seem like a 3-D film, even in 1991. The first shot of the castle through the trees as the image moves through a forest and over a brook was stunning in regular 2-D. It was even more amazing in the third dimension. As Belle wanders the castle and encounters statues and relief paintings, they make the eyes pop with dramatic image response. Gaston's trophy room looks even more ridiculous with a third dimension to all of his antler decorating. That is the main benefit of the 3-D treatment here, the background impress even more than they originally did. The action and characters are not enhanced much by the converstion but that is quibbling, it is still a delight to sit through.

My kids were five and three when we first saw this film. My oldest cried out during the scene where the villagers were on their way to storm the Beast's castle. She sobbed inconsolably in my lap and I was embarrassed but also proud that she could so freely respond to the emotions in the film. Today, just as 21 years ago, we went as a family and all of us had moist eyes at the end of the screening. I know this is a commercial for the video release of the film in just a couple of weeks, but I have been known to cry at commercials as well so I don't feel too self conscious. When people complain that it is simply rehashing the past and that Hollywood has run out of creativity when it starts mutating older films for re-release, I have to ask if you have seen some of the dreck that has been foisted on us in the past five to ten years.

I was happy to plop down the extra price for the 3-D, even for a 10:30 a.m. showing, because what I was being sold was worth the price, even if it did not have a 3-D added element. Someday, when my lotto numbers come in, I will open a small four screen multiplex, and show movies that I want to see on the big screen again. Maybe I will be sitting there alone, but that will make it easier for me to shed a tear for how wonderful a movie can be and not be embarrassed in front of everyone else.

Celebrating 50 Years of James Bond on Blu-ray

I'm having a double Ogasim. This is just too cool. Of course I'm going to be repurchasing product I've owned for the fourth or fifth time. I guess I am the Consumer that Hollywood craves.

Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy

Back in the late seventies or early eighties, my best friend Art Franz, turned me on to the works of John LeCarre. I think I only read "The Spy who Came in from the Cold", "Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy" and "Smiley's People".  I don't remember them that well but I do recall that they were intricately plotted, very detailed and focused on the real contest between the Soviets and the West. Smiley was a character that was contained but brilliant and his mind was not really clouded by anything except the game. Alec Guinness portrayed Smiley in a BBC production of Tinker Tailor, that ran on PBS back in the early eighties. I think it was an eight hour project, so you can tell there is a lot of plotting and material that could be visualized.  This new theatrical version is just over two hours and there is still the same amount of plotting in it but it has to develop a lot quicker.

I guess I should consider myself thankful that the concession stand attendant had to move over and put together Ice Cream for someone else, otherwise I might have got my usual large Coke Zero and then might need to leave the theater to relieve myself an hour or so in. Had I done so, I know I would have been lost because every moment in the film has clues and paths that will help develop the story. This is a spy story where the plotters are not known till the end, the main villain is never really seen directly, and the hero is a nondescript bureaucrat, who appears to be as ineffectual at home as he is efficient at work. Phone calls, receipts and words repeated by someone that you did not share them with, are all the evidence that we get for most of the mystery. There are only three quick scenes of violence and everything else is internalized or hinted at.

Gary Oldman has been a wonderful actor for more than three decades. I first remember seeing him in "Sid and Nancy", an unpleasant memory of the Sex Pistols but a grand introduction to Oldman as an actor. I have seen him chew up the scenery in plenty of films. "Romeo is Bleeding" and "The Fifth Element" are good examples of Oldman going full force at an over the top character and making it interesting. He has been the lead, a key supporting character and a passing cameo in dozens of films over the years. Alec Guinness played Smiley as a little more elite and not quite as cold. Oldman takes the character and owns it. His Smiley barely speaks in the movie, he is all reaction and timing. There is a vacuum around his personality that sucks in all the air and makes him feel like the center of the scene even when he has little to do. The end of the film made me want to see him in a big screen version of "Smiley's People" right now. It is a very good example of a performance that is subdued but controls the story around it.

The intrigue and suspicion in the movie is supported by a cast of very good actors that covey exactly the mood the film needs. Toby Jones (who I think is American) plays the new head of the British spy agency known as "The Circus", with unctuous superiority and disdain for anyone else.  Colin Firth is one of the suspects who also oozes an attitude of superiority in the grand British style.  There are so many good performers in the film that it is easy to lose track of the focus which needs to be the story. I did feel at times that a little more underlining would help the viewer keep track, but if you are engaged, you won't have any trouble figuring out what is going on.

The movie is set in 1973, and the director and art director do a fine job showing us London without all the new landmarks and Budapest (although I suspect it has looked the same for a hundred years) looks like it could be behind the Iron Curtain. This is a well made piece of adult entertainment and I am pleased to say there was a pretty good audience for a 10:30 a.m. showing on a Tuesday. This bodes well for financial returns, which maters because there really should be a follow up using the character of Smilely in another story, but if they can't get Gary Oldman to return, they should forget it. You need this kind of performance to sustain an intellectual puzzle movie that would not be very appealing if there were not an excellent cast selling it.

The Darkest Hour

January is a dead time for new movies. Most films opening are wide releases of late debut Oscar bait. Then there is the annual Liam Neeson ass kicking movie, and finally there is product that is so dismal, it can't even be opened in September so they wait until January to dump it. This movie actually opened on Christmas day and then it died. It felt like a wake today because Amanda and I were the only people in the theater to see this screening. It actually was kinda nice, I did not have to ask anyone to turn off their phones and save the Facebook updates until after the movie. Counter programming is a strategy that can work if you have no other competition, but this movie has Sherlock Holmes, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo and Mission Impossible to contend with for the action audience and it was not a contest.

This is your basic alien invasion movie, with horror touches. I had a student in class tonight named Yuri, who said he saw it at a midnight screening for the opening, in 3-D, he said it sucked. Of course he paid $16 to see it when he was probably tired, I paid $6 and saw it all before noon. I used this as an example in class tonight, in making a claim of future fact. Could I expect to make money investing $30 million for a sci-fi action film to open on a holiday among crowded competition ? My answer was no, I'd have waited and tried to open the week before the Liam Neeson movie. Action fans will want something to wet their appetite, and the other movies will be more played out by then. This is a high concept film with no stars, a limited budget and a downer theme opening at Christmas, someone did not make very strong inferences.

I found the movie perfectly satisfying for what it is. There is an interesting concept, a very effective special effect that gets used each time there is an alien attack, and the setting was somewhere that has not been seen a thousand times already in other movies (although Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol, did just use the same setting for the opening sequences of it's story). There is nothing groundbreaking here, if you were to cross "Cloverfield" and "Independence Day", you would pretty much get this chase film set in a largely abandoned Moscow. There is enough suspense to keep you involved for an hour and a half, and the people are pretty as are the special effects.

There are four or five main characters, and then some come and go as the movie travels from one location to another. Not everyone makes it out of the scenerio that has been set up and that adds a little bit of credibility to the plot. Although if you think about it, you can probably predict who will survive and who will get wiped by the alien forces. I did like the fact that the American characters had to struggle because they did not speak Russian, and therefore they could not tell which broadcasts or what signs should be listened to. Each character gets a couple of minutes to shine, and even one character that we know to despise, gets a chance at redemption. I did like the courage theme that ran through the film. We all ask ourselves, "how would we cope in this situation?" Here we get a variation on the answers that seems to cover most of the possibilities.

Emile Hirsh is the only name I recognized in the cast. Except for the four Americans, everyone else is Russian or Swedish so they are not household names. I thought Hirsh was the weakest performance of the cast, but he does have one good scene at the end where he is explaing his friendship with his buddy/business partner to one of the girls in the story. That was his most convincing segment in the movie. He also has some rousing moments in the closing of the film, but he is not really an action star. This movie is all about the concept. If you are not too discriminating on dialogue or character, and you like alien invasion movies, then you will be OK with The Darkest Hour. If I were you however, I'd go to the discount 2-D matinee instead of the mid-night 3-D screening.