Author: Chris

This is Kar Wai Wong’s first movie filmed in the United States. It is a very loosely linked set of three tales of obsession and lost love. Nora Jones stars. Hers is the first story, with Jude Law as the friendly cafe owner who holds her hand as she tries to get over a past relationship, and slowly falls for her. Then Jones travels west, where the second story (and easily the best) centers on David Strathairn, who spends his nights on a barstool pining for his ex-wife. Finally Jones meets up with Natalie Portman, as a gambler with father issues, before returning to New York and Jeremy (Law).  It is typically lush, and Kar Wai Wong does silences, and brief moments of slow motion as well as anyone. But the story is too thin to contain a movie, and the performances are weak, with the exception of Strathairn. This is ultimately a little disappointing coming from the director of Chunking Express, In the Mood for Love,  and 2046.

I’ve been expecting someone to post on this all week. Since no one has, I’ll clear the decks before the Dark Knight comments appear (sadly I’m in Europe, where it doesn’t open for another week or so, so I’m looking forward to hearing your reactions). I was very enthusiastic about the second Hellboy right after watching it; a week on and I’m a little less enthralled. Still, this is the most visually inventive and lush movie I have seen in a long time. Setting aside plot, character and dialogue, the movie is worth watching just for the endless delight of its imagery. There is a forest god straight out Princess Monokoke, a bustling troll market that looks better than anything George Lucas managed, a character who is entirely gaseous, and a massive mechanical army, complete with cogs and clockwork machinery.

The movie itself is perfectly fine. The leads play off each other well, with Selma Blair particularly good. There is one wonderful scene involving a Barry Manilow song. But you watch this primarily to drink in the imagination of Guillermo del Toro.

This is a slight but nevertheless enjoyable July 4th outing for Will Smith. I assume you have all seen the previews, so the basic plot setup requires little explanation. The movie divides neatly into three 30 minute segments. First segment has Smith, as John Hancock, the foul-mouthed, intemperate superhero. He drinks, swears, appears to have been sniffing coke, and does a pretty miserable job of saving the citizens of LA. Second segment sees Hancock persuaded by Ray, a mild-mannered media relations guy (Jason Bateman), to clean himself up, wear a nifty leather costume, and generally endear himself to the police and populace. The third segment is much darker, involves the origin story, and brings Ray’s wife, played by Charlize Theron center stage. Revealing any of that segment would require spoilers so I’ll wait until someone else sees the movie. Continue reading Hancock

Has anyone watched this? All I can find on the blog is a brief but positive aside from Jeff. It airs on Showtime, which I don’t get, but season 1 is available to watch instantly on Netflix. The concept seemed rife with opportunities to produce something really horrible: forensic investigator with the Miami police who specializes in tracking down serial killers, and he is especially good at his job because he himself is a serial killer. He handles his urges to kill by only going after those who has escaped punishment by the criminal justice system. Three episodes in, I am very impressed. Michael C. Hall (of Six Feet Under fame) plays the lead, and he owns the role. Many of the characters are pretty flimsy (especially Jennifer Carpenter who plays his sister), but Hall give a multi-layered performance managing to convey vulnerability and menace at the same time. A small smile plays across his lips most of the time, and his shows genuine delight at coming across a true master serial killer. The series plays cleverly and in non-obvious ways with issues of abuse, emotion, sex and vengeance. Hall has chosen to be in a relationship with a deeply damaged woman in part because it avoids the need for sex. His foster father, a cop, recognized his urges and essentially taught him how to get away with it, but also how to channel it towards “taking out the garbage.” Creepy, clever, compelling.

Better than I expected. It is quite intelligently directed with strong supporting roles from Arkin and The Rock (I’ll never call him Dwayne Johnson), and a lovely cameo from Bill Murray. I even liked Terrence Stamp’s bitter one-liners about Hollywood actors. The moments of homage to the TV series are unobtrusive so that the younger set can enjoy the movie. There are a couple of set-piece action sequences and a handful of silly jokes, but overall it is actually quite a sweet movie, which seems an odd description for this genre of remake of old 60’s TV show. This quality comes from Carell’s portrayal of Maxwell Smart as not so much dumb, arrogant and loud, as awkward, perceptive and surprisingly skilled as an operative. Smart is the one who is right more often than more experienced agents. The central part of the movie follows Smart and Agent 99 (Anne Hathaway) on a mission to Russia. The object is to show how they grow to respect each other as agents and even fall in love. The movie doesn’t quite pull off this feat, because too often the gags get in the way, but it comes close. This is probably not the place for an examination of Carell as a comic actor, but he has carved out an interesting space between the sad sack bumbling fool and the self-assured spewer of one-liners.

I thought there was at least a post about this but damned if I can find it. Anyway, Control is a semi-fictional account of Ian Curtis, lead singer of Joy Division (based on a memoir by Curtis’ wife). It covers the period from 1973 to Curtis’ suicide at the age of 23 in 1980. The depiction of Curtis’ personal life, his doubts, epilepsy and depression, is fairly run-of-the-mill. The movie mostly avoids melodrama and relies instead on the haunted expression that almost never leaves the face of Sam Riley, who portrays Curtis. Little moments such as when he comes home and his eyes take in the drying diapers and bottles of baby formula; nothing is said but you know this will not end well. Samantha Morton, as Debbie Curtis, gets first billing (presumably because Riley is unknown) and she plays the loving but bewildered wife well, but she is not given a great deal to do.

The revelation comes whenever the band is on stage. Joy Division’s songs are performed by the actors, with Riley’s voice standing in for that of Curtis. Riley stands clutching the mic, looking like a somewhat manic Harry Potter, and completely inhabits Curtis. I saw Joy Division live in some grimy dance hall back when I was in school, and I was mesmerized by Curtis then, and mesmerized again by Riley in this movie. That voice was Joy Division, and even New Order at its best could never come close to the hypnotic trance induced by Curtis’ vocals. There is a wonderful scene in a sound studio when Riley is laying down the vocal track to ‘Isolation’ and the studio is packed with people but nobody is paying attention to Riley and behind the soundproof glass he is indeed completely isolated. Highly recommended.

The fourth Rambo, and one assumes the last, is not horrible. It is crafted pretty simply and runs to a little over 80 minutes. Rambo is living a peaceful life on the river in Thailand. Missionaries ask to be taken by boat into Burma. After initially refusing, and insisting that words will never change anything, Rambo takes them. Missionaries are captured and imprisoned by brutal Burmese army, and Rambo takes a group of mercenaries back to retrieve them. Mayhem ensues. Continue reading Rambo

After the despair that Chelsea fans (myself included) feel after last night’s Champions League final, at least an excuse to connect the loss to movies. Someone on a Chelsea fan blog linked each Chelsea player to a classic of Soviet cinema:

Cech – The Diamond Arm – Gaidai 1968
That double save in the 1st half and he saved a penalty Continue reading Soviet Cinema and Soccer

Does anyone know of good sources on the material production of US movies, both studio and independent? I’m particularly interested in the treatment of actors as workers. This became salient recently when a friend who is a union rep. with SAG told me about a multi-union wildcat strike on the set of a David O. Russell movie (which sounds like a train wreck waiting to happen). There are apparently complicated rules about pension funds and how much of a film’s financing has to be put in escrow to pay actors before filming can begin, and so on. This is an area I know next to nothing about, so if anyone can suggest a source for this kind of information, I’d be grateful.

Against my expectations, I really enjoyed this. It is worth watching for three reasons:
1) Robert Downey Jr. He is more or less perfect for the role displaying his cynical brand of humor leavened with some low key but effective acting (especially early on when he is imprisoned by some Taleban-esque Afghans).
2) the dialogue is clever, quick and genuinely funny in places. Downey’s lines with Gwyneth Paltrow and Jeff Bridges (both of whom handle their roles well) have the sort of zing that you don’t normally associate with a summer blockbuster.
3) the Iron Man him/itself. The usual superhero backstory is about how Bruce Wayne became Batman, or Peter Parker became Spiderman. Here the backstory is shorn of any real psychological drama. It is about mechanics and pulleys and “arc reactors” and stabilizers and such like. What we get is a strong sense of whizz-bangery (and several funny scenes of Downey testing the equipment).
Good old-fashioned entertainment. As one of my kids noted, it is rare that an audience applauds a movie like this when the final credits roll.