Review: ‘The Lone Ranger’

The fact that Johnny Depp alone gets top billing above the title, “The Lone Ranger,” despite not playing said character sums up the generally misguided approach taken by Depp and the creative crew behind the “Pirates of the Caribbean” franchise in bringing last century’s radio and TV hero back to the big screen in a big way.

The story begins, needlessly, in 1933 — the year that The Lone Ranger originally hit the airwaves — as a young boy in San Francisco encounters a decrepit Tonto (Depp) as part of a travelling sideshow. The boy’s Ranger-aping attire prompts Tonto to recollect their original adventures together decades earlier, as the Native American outcast and left-for-dead lawyer John Reid (Armie Hammer) reluctantly teamed up to avenge their families, each having been ruthlessly slain by cannibalistic fiend Butch Cavendish (William Fichtner, suitably dastardly) and his band of outlaws.

That sounds simple enough, right? A 149-minute running time bloated with flashbacks, flash-forwards and non-surprises galore says otherwise, although why should one expect anything less between director Gore Verbinski, co-writers Ted Elliott and Terry Rossio and producer Jerry Bruckheimer? Being veterans of the two most recent “Zorro” films, Elliott and Rossio should have known to keep the action, treachery and romance plain and simple; after four “Pirates” films, it’s little wonder that they couldn’t manage that. Justin Haythe was brought in to rewrite their script, reportedly pruning down costly supernatural elements and yet still leaving room for a scorpion attack, a brothel visit (accounting for half of Helena Bonham Carter’s two scenes as a one-legged madam), belching horses, pooping horses, sporadic commentary on the damnable reach of the White Man (epitomized by railroad magnate Tom Wilkinson) into a new frontier and so much lip service regarding the true nature of justice.

In the middle stretch between the film’s admittedly cracking train-set bookends, we get plenty of Depp’s quirky schtick, as he feeds a dead bird atop his head and makes backhanded remarks in broken English (shades of 2011’s update of “The Green Hornet”). We’re treated to more of Tonto’s tragic backstory than we are of John’s, despite his seemingly contentious return to his hometown following years of law education back east. His brother (James Badge Dale) is a Texas Ranger who sees little need for due process; his brother’s wife (Ruth Wilson) clearly used to have a thing for John, but she and her boy (Bryant Prince) are little more than two-for-one damsels to be later distressed. Once the first act sets up these relationships, the Lone Ranger is only ever a larger presence than Tonto in his own film thanks to Hammer’s towering height more than his proven charms.

Otherwise, it’s back to our questionably reliable narrator, a Jack Sparrow once again thrust from serving the role of priceless sidekick to becoming a listless leading man, prattling on about how “nature is out of balance” and trading in the same half-dozen sub-routines of deadpan wackiness. Those worried about the potential offensiveness of Depp’s performance should know that genuine Native American characters are eventually introduced to serve two purposes: to distance Tonto’s off-kilter ways from their own tribe, and to then be mowed down in a pointless hail of second-act gunfire. Similar acts of violence taint the would-be lightness of it all: workers are yanked down from power poles by passing trains which soon crash, despite cars shown to be filled with passengers, while henchmen’s heads are handily crushed without so much as a smidge of blood shown. (Way to still land a PG-13, Disney! Take that, snaggle-toothed cross-dressers!)

But hey, hearts aren’t going to cut themselves out of chest cavities to be swallowed whole. Sadly, such disingenuous touches are par for the remaining course. Verbinski treats the first act with relative gravity, playing up the striking vistas of the American Southwest and generally distancing himself from the computer-generated hullabaloo that had dominated his three “Pirates” pictures and this film’s opening sequence. There’s at least one shot of the Reid Brothers and company framed against a particularly ominous pass that suggests a classical fondness for Westerns, one not beholden to the oddball prism of Verbinski and Depp’s last collaboration, “Rango,” and briefly beautiful in its own right, and even when the climactic chase between two criss-crossing trains has all the gravity of a toy train run off the rails not long before, this action sequence finally comes closest to capturing the freewheeling spirit of that Oscar-winning animated effort.

Until then, Depp prances about while the expected white men gradually reveal their greedy schemes (although enough about Jerry Bruckheimer…). By the time the William Tell Overture finally kicks in for the big finale, it’s not just a welcome callback to the Ranger’s original cultural legacy, but a respite from composer Hans Zimmer’s relentless recycling of his own “Pirates” and “Sherlock Holmes” scores. Then the movie ends, and ends, and ends, with the promise (threat?) of further adventures to come. At their best, “Caribbean” and “Rango” represented the ideal outcome of a costly creative collaboration, lively and lithe despite their blockbuster burdens. “The Lone Ranger” isn’t that. It’s the end result of a calculated brand — two and a half hours of “fun” in air quotes.

SCORE: 5.5 / 10

Categories: Reviews

Tags: Armie Hammer, Gore verbinski, Johnny depp, Review, The lone ranger, William goss

Review: ‘Despicable Me 2′

The sequelization of big studio films, which is really just rampant commercialism, has led to some interesting results. On one hand, you always want to see more of the characters you’ve grown to love, from “The Lord of the Rings” to “Iron Man” to, yes, even good ol’ Bella Swan. The downside of this familiarity comes, sadly, with the temptation to merely do the same thing all over again. For if it worked once, why not just run it back, collect the check, and go about your merry way? “The Hangover Part II” was the worst modern version of a sequel turning in a lazy effort, though films such as “The Hobbit” and “Taken 2? aren’t exactly blameless either. Where does “Despicable Me 2? land in this equation? Somewhere in the middle, never quite reaching the heights of “Monsters University” or most of the “Harry Potter” series, though never fully falling flat on its face.

Basically, “Despicable Me 2” is more than content to glide along, trading upon the goodwill generated by the original’s charm. Precisely where does this become a bad thing? Well, if you ascribe to the notion each story must stand on its own, or perhaps if you believe in the idea of wanting each film you watch to bring a little something new to the table. “Despicable Me 2? doesn’t check the box on either of those accolades. However, if you’re looking for the always popular “good time,” “Despicable Me 2? certainly has that going for it. The film is lovable, though in the same way an adorable puppy is, even when careening into the refrigerator in pursuit of a tennis ball or stumbling over wobbly feet on the way to feeding time.

This time around, Gru (Steve Carell) has gone legit, and his focus is the business of jams and jellies. Clearly, that’s delightful, and his adorable trio of little ladies is back in full force too, together forming an unstoppable bond of cuteness. Still, none of this makes for a story arc, and so Gru is enlisted into the Anti-Villian League, brought into the fold to find an unknown baddie, one intent on building a group of monsters with a stolen secret formula. Gru going good comes along with a partner from the AVL, Lucy (Kristen Wiig), who naturally brings her own wonky charms to the story. The animated chemistry between Gru and Lucy is apparent, and the temptation to focus more on this plot device must have been seriously tempting (more on that shortly).

Unfortunately, “Despicable Me 2? isn’t really about chasing down an evil-doer. There are plenty of asides, and these dalliances from the story sap some of the momentum from the piece. Many other themes are introduced in a relatively haphazard manner, leaving “Despicable Me 2? balancing numerous storylines, many of which have completely different tonal directions. Should Gru stay a bachelor? Do the girls need a mother figure? Once you’ve been evil, can you make the transition to positive deeds? Finally, how is Gru going to handle the oldest daughter, Margo, taking a shine to boys? As you can see, alternating chase scenes with parental frowns toward dating is a bit like neutral dropping your engine, and it leads to some clunkiness.

That said, “Despicable Me 2? is fun, especially near the culmination. Structural issues aside, it’s impossible not to like these characters, all of them, rendered with love, always entertaining even when the story around them doesn’t make much sense. The minions also routinely score on the comedy front, though let’s be clear, they are basically glorified little yellow stooges. Their humor is completely based upon miscommunication and physical comedy. Again, not a bad thing, but a worry as the series goes forward, because physical comedy tends to wear thin if continually repeated. The strongest elements of the film are the father-daughter relationships, and in fact they may have been better off simply jettisoning the “save the world” angle, but ah yes, that’s a trap, because while it would have made the movie better for adult viewing, just as with the Lucy-Gru attraction, it would have completely alienated any young minds watching. A nine-year-old doesn’t want anything to do with protective parental hijinks or adults dating, so it’s understandable why “Despicable Me 2? is somewhat muddled, because the intended audience ranges from seven to everybody else.

Near the end of “Despicable Me 2? there’s a musical interlude that slays, and it’s clear that the creators of the film were just dying to get to this bit, figuring (correctly) anyone who made it this far with a mere smirk would depart the theater with a huge smile.  “Despicable Me 2? is a generally effective sequel, even if it often doesn’t qualify as a stand-alone bastion of cinema.

SCORE: 6.3 / 10

Laremy wrote the book on film criticism and thinks parenting a young lady about to date boys would be a nightmare.

Categories: Reviews

Tags: Despicable Me 2, Gru, Laremy legel, Minions, Review, Steve Carrell

Review: ‘I’m So Excited!’

It’s a crime they didn’t serve a cocktail when they showed “I’m So Excited!” No, crime just doesn’t cut it. We’ll have to paraphrase Big Edie and declaim it what it truly is, “the most disgusting, atrocious thing to ever happen.”

Pedro Almodovar’s newest, airiest film does have some sort of sociological message stirred into the mix, but it is merely an aftertaste, easily washed down. First and foremost “I’m So Excited!” is late night cabaret – funny, filthy and more than a little bit sloshed.

The cartoonishly decorated jet airliner (it’s the same teal color as Sully!) where 90% of the action takes place is the perfect stage as we literally go round and round, watching the pilots, stewards and passengers (in first class only) spill their guts and reclaim their lives. The landing gear is damaged (thanks to a goofy cameo from Antonio Banderas and Penelope Cruz) and as emergency crews prepare a runway, our trio of flamboyant hosts vamp for time.

Also Check Out: The Films of Pedro Almodóvar from Worst to Best

Our swishy lead Joserra (Javier Camara) is honest to a fault, the tequila-guzzling Ulloa (Raul Averalo) is a force of nature and the tsking, comparatively conservative Fajas (Carlos Areces) gets a laugh each and every time he brushes the hair from his forhead.

There are shenanigans in the galley, the cockpit and among the passengers, too, each of whom react to their potential doom in amusingly nonchalant ways. As we learn of coincidences that link everyone together, “I’m So Excited” presents itself as something of a bawdy, boozy Agatha Christie-like exercise. Indeed, it does feel a lot like a “filmed play” except for one remarkable sequence at about the thirty minute mark.

Many of the passengers decide to make a call home, including “the Actor” (Guillermo Toledo.) The bright, zing-heavy tone turns far more melodramatic (though no less coincidence-prone) as we check in on the women in his life back in Madrid. It feels a bit like a preexisting short film that has been shoehorned into this movie, and in a less lighthearted frame of mind I might be tempted to throw up my hands and shout “what the hell is this intrusion doing in this movie?” Two things stopped me. One, the sequence is gorgeous and two, when you are under the stewardship of “if it feels good, it is good” it’s somewhat difficult to get up on your high horse.

“I’m So Excited!” climaxes with a magic hour lit frenzy of drug-fueled sex, but all done in, you know, a classy manner. (The costumes are too gorgeous to take all the way off.) This is a story whose focus are those who are normally on the fringes. Our heroes are gay or bisexual men. The only women with large speaking parts are a mid-50s “puma” (that’s Spanish for cougar) and a childlike, rural (and clairvoyant!) 40 year-old virgin. There’s a conventional “hottie” by Hollywood standards, but Almodovar keeps her in a doped-up, silent haze the entire time. Enough people are making movies about her, he has other subjects in mind.

Despite the fabulousness of the set and choreography (yes, there’s a musical number) I can’t emphasize enough the thick strain of delicious sleaze in “I’m So Excited!” This is very much a flashback to Almodovar’s earlier work, a love letter to the hedonism found in, say, “Pepi, Luci, Bom” and “Dark Habits.” If you have an uncle-in-law whose attitudes toward gay lifestyle is still in its “evolving” stage, a movie like this may spike the punch. This is not a palatable “Billy Elliot”-prance, this is, at times, unashamed, foul and proud. (Though maybe some shock and awe might do your uncle-in-law some good, what do I know?)

The point is, by the end we get to know and like everyone on board – even the nefarious Mexican dude who looks like Frank Zappa – and it is time to assume crash position. The plane lands softly on a bed of foam, a perfect allegory for the champagne bubbles and lightness permeating the entire affair.

SCORE: 6.9 / 10

Categories: Reviews

Tags: Antonio banderas, I'm So Excited, Jordan hoffman, Movie review, Pedro almodovar, Penelope cruz, Review, Sony pictures classics

Review: ‘Byzantium’

This review was originally published on September 10, 2012 as part of Film.com’s coverage of the 2012 Toronto International Film Festival.

Dear Neil Jordan’s “Byzantium,”

It’s not you, it’s me.

You are so beautiful, so earnest. You are going to make a moody, gothic fantasy fan so happy one day. And I’ll be there to cheer you on, proud of your world-building efforts, your evocative photography and unique mother-daughter dynamics. I’m so sorry I won’t be able to ever say I love you (or even like you), but I admire you, and I know that you’ll do well.

While your spirit is pure and eternal, I simply have no more room in my life for a tale of ennui-besotted vampires, wandering for centuries in their prison of stunted age.

As Eleanor Webb, Saoirse Ronan haunts a British seaside resort looking like an extra in a Depeche Mode video, catching the eye of the sickly Frank, played by Caleb Landry Jones. Her mind is elsewhere, however, reflecting on the two hundred years of hiding in plain sight in different towns with her “older sister” (really, her mother) Clara, played by Gemma Arterton.

Clara, who photographs fairly well if you haven’t noticed, has been keeping the family unit safe via the world’s oldest profession. With two centuries of johns under her unbuckled belt, she’s good at spotting someone she can exploit, so when a nervous man with access to an empty hotel comes her way, she’s quick to jump. Soon she and Eleanor move in, giving the eternal tween more time to sulk.

“You can’t throw the past away!” Eleanor yells to her hot, hot, hot (hot) leather pants-wearing mother, before ending up in a classroom and writing down her life story.

In prose that ought to feed the ever-hungry beast of young adult fiction, Eleanor explains how an evil captain betrayed and essentially gang-pressed her mother into prostitution. Eleanor was sent to an orphanage, but after an act of vengeance and violence, they both found themselves blessed/cursed with eternal life and a thirst for human blood.

There are maps and caves and waterfalls of blood, and it is all so very beautiful, but the story-within-the-story-within-the-story becomes so weighted with iconography that I just shut down. Truth be told, the story of the prostitute mother in a seaside town, her moody piano-playing daughter and the leukemia-stricken boy she loves is far more interesting than the tale of two vamps. It also reminded me of Neil Jordan’s wonderful 1991 picture “The Miracle.”

Far be it from me to ever reject imagery of Gemma Arterton in a bodice, but I found myself agreeing with her emotionally scarred character: focus on the present and don’t look back.

“Byzantium” is cut together so cleanly it becomes dull. There’s not one moment of levity in the whole picture. The nuggets revealed during the third act are interesting enough, but laid out like this, it just sounds like more, “Blah blah, vampire curse, blah.” “Byzantium” writer Moira Buffini also penned screenplays for “Tamara Drewe,” which starred Arterton, and Cary Fukunaga’s “Jane Eyre.” Perhaps appropriately enough, she is also adapting the gothy YA sensation “The Night Circus” for the screen, as well.

Then again, what some of us consider a slog, others will eat up with a fork and a spoon. It isn’t just the bright colors and the costumes but every visual aspect of “Byzantium” that sings. Neil Jordan knows where to put the camera. It’s just a shame he wasn’t able to inject a little life inside that frame.

SCORE: 5.9 / 10

Categories: Reviews

Tags: Byzantium, Caleb Landry Jones, Gemma arterton, Moira Buffini, Neil Jordan, Review, Saoirse Ronan, Toronto International Film Festival

Review: ‘Maniac’

After breaking out with his thoroughly grisly, ultimately goofy “High Tension,” Alexandre Aja has made a name for himself on horror remakes: 2006’s “The Hills Have Eyes,” 2008’s “Mirrors,” 2010’s “Piranha.” Acting as a producer and co-writer this time out, Aja hands the reins over to Franck Khalfoun, director of the Aja-produced parking-garage thriller “P2,” as they put a first-person spin on William Lustig’s cult classic, “Maniac.”

The chief gimmick here is that everything we see is from the eyes — or at least the mind — of Frank (Elijah Wood), a mannequin aficionado with a penchant for stalking and scalping young beauties so as to better adorn his lifeless companions. His voice is a panicky constant, his vision an occasional blur on account of migraines, with the perspective only dropped for flashbacks to Frank’s typically trashy childhood and whenever he finally lands the thrill of a kill. By the time he falls for cute photographer Anna (Nora Arnezeder) and attempts a proper courtship, we know that the track record isn’t exactly in his favor…

Khalfoun’s technique may be cinema’s most thuddingly literal attempt to put viewers inside the head of a psychopath, complete with Norman Bates-worthy mommy issues, but as a technical feat, it makes for a remarkably dedicated experience while minimizing concerns over Wood’s less-than-intimidating stature. (“Sin City,” this is not.) Our lead doesn’t resemble Joe Spinell in the original, nor should he. Spinell played a very particular kind of brute ideal for the seediness of late-‘70s NYC; Wood plays the type of shy guy that present-day Angelenos aren’t necessarily afraid to take home before it’s too late.

There are callbacks nonetheless, some of which are just a touch too on-the-nose, and the synth-heavy score by Rob helps to keep the film out of its own time, but just as the original “Maniac” was chiefly remarkable for its groundbreaking gore effects by Tom Savini, the gruesomeness here is almost proudly impeccable in its seamlessness. Now and then, the subjectivity of Frank’s mind is eerie enough, as when the patrons of a restaurant all seem to stop and stare him down while his date prattles on, but more often than not, Khalfoun and Aja are all about working the gag reflex – a questionable goal, to be sure, but one that’s effectively achieved.

For some, the moral vacuum in which this plays out will prove insurmountable, and understandably so. Apathy virtually scalps empathy at every turn. For others, though, “Maniac” is a bit like watching an amputee play hopscotch: there’s no way that it’s polite to stare for this long, but you just have to see if this guy’s gonna make it to the end.

SCORE: 6.6 / 10

“Maniac” is now available on VOD, iTunes and in select theaters.

Categories: Reviews

Tags: Alexandre aja, Elijah wood, Maniac, Remake, Review, William goss

Review: ‘A Hijacking’

Captain Jack Sparrow, they are not.

The pirates you see – but never really meet – in Tobias Lindholm’s gut-churning film “A Hijacking” are not fun. They are all business, maybe some of them are evil, or others are just pawns. There’s no shortage of gray area and, to the film’s credit, there is plenty of space in which to examine the film, looking for answers. “A Hijacking” isn’t boring, but it is not an adventure film – it is a frustratingly realistic take on the unfortunate modern threat of piracy, and a bit of an emotional workout.

We open with some unsubtle scenes of Johan Philip Asbæk as Mikkel, the cook on a Danish commercial ship. He’s got a bit of a Shaggy from “Scooby-Doo” thing going, and he’s on the satellite phone to his wife and kids. He’s a nice guy! I hope nothing happens to him.

Once we meet Mikkel we cut to the interior of a luxury sedan. At the wheel, the sharply dressed Søren Malling as Peter, the CEO of the shipping concern that owns Mikkel’s boat. After witnessing him work negotiating magic in the boardroom (then sternly but politely dress-down an underling for not asking for his help earlier) he gets the news. One of his ships has been hijacked.

The set-up is clear and perfect – the absolute top and bottom of the totem pole. How will the events of the titular hijacking effect them both?

Well, nobody comes out of a situation like this entirely unscathed, but it reminds me of one of my favorite old jokes my friend’s grandfather used to say. With his thick Eastern European accent he’d offer “Listen – I’ve been rich and miserable, and I’ve been poor and miserable. And I can tell you – rich is better.”

On Mikkel’s end it is pure PsyOps. He and two others are separated from the rest of the crew and kept in a fly-ridden, blazing-hot room (you can hear the vinyl cushions stick to their skin.) They are forced to relieve themselves in the corner. As the cook, Mikkel is gets pulled out to serve meals, and he ends up being chosen to speak to the company back home.

Guiding him is Omar, an enigmatic, bilingual man who is quick to remind everyone that he isn’t a pirate, just a negotiator, and he wants to go home, too. Whether or not this is true is never revealed.

Back on land (and in sterile, harshly lit offices) Peter has recruited a British specialist to help him with negotiations. The very first thing he does is ignore him, and demand to speak on the phone himself. It’s hard to say if this is out of some sort of machismo or intense guilt. It’s also unsure if he keeps lowballing Omar because he is a skinflint or because this is the only way to ensure the safety of his crew.

With this set-up in play you now expect the fireworks to happen. And that’s when the movie starts to move to the beat of its own, weird drum. Nothing happens. Well, nothing plot-heavy happens. The gears move really slowly with this sort of thing, and hours quickly turn to days and days to weeks. Our characters on both ends of the phone become more frazzled, and we in the audience just get more and more queasy.

Through it all, Lindholm keeps his eye focused. The office scenes grow sickening with their harsh fluorescent lights. On the boat, Mikkel and his comrades try to connect with their captors in some way. A round of bored drunkenness seems to break the ice, but no true bonds are formed. It’s as if they are begging for Stockholm Syndrome. You know something bad is going to happen, but you don’t quite know what or when.

“A Hijacking” has an extremely gratifying ending in that it is dramatic but also stays true to the very dead-pan, naturalist style of the entire film. There’s no geo-political finger-pointing, or even much class warfare beyond the obvious. It flatly lays out what would happen in a situation like this, who would be affected and how. Not a fun boat trip to take, but as an exercise in situational filmmaking it is a recommended one.

SCORE: 8.0 / 10

Categories: Reviews

Tags: A Hijacking, Johan Philip Asbaek, Jordan hoffman, Piracy, Review, Tobias Lindholm

BAMCinemaFest Review: ‘Hellaware’

To make jokes about rural Insane Clown Posse-esque rock/rappers is shooting fish in a barrel. To make jokes about the Brooklyn art scene is shooting fish in a pint glass with an assault rifle. And yet Michael M. Bilandic’s microbudget indie “Hellaware,” a story which skewers both groups, manages to be a funny, albeit slight success by reigning in the buffoonery and keeping the whole affair extremely deadpan. This is a wafer thin movie, but there isn’t a scene in its brisk 75 minute runtime that isn’t developing its central characters in an almost surreptitious manner. No one is asking you to take the movie too seriously, but it is a rather sly affair, slipping in some genuine food for thought amongst its snickering.

Nate (Keith Poulson) is a would-be art photographer facing the brick wall of post-grad life. His girlfriend (Kate Lyn Sheil) just dumped him for a slobby dude with pigtails who somehow manages to sell his wretched, infantile art. Nate licks his wounds with his friends, throwing away quips that a director with less assurance than Bilandic would be milking for maximum but inappropriate effect.

While putzing around the apartment with his best pals (Sophia Takal and an African-American actor whose name I can’t find in the press notes or the Internet, but is playing a character obsessed with the 90s while dressed like Dwayne Wayne) Nate happens upon a self-produced video by a group calling themselves Young Torture Killaz. Their opus is “I’ll Cut Yo Dick Off” and it’s a goof, but not too ridiculous not to feel potentially real.

Something in the song speaks to Nate. Well, not the song, but the experience. It is horrible music, but there’s an honesty and desperation that Nate finds striking. (We the in the audience don’t have to feel it, it’s still believable if we’re just chuckling.) Soon Nate is en route to Delaware, a state all have driven through, but no one is entirely convinced has more to it than a few rest stops. He meets and befriends the Young Torture Killaz (in their Mom’s basement, naturally) and pretty soon he’s got some photographs that are impressive enough to catch the eye of top gallerist Olivier LaFleur.

At around this point you realize that, for a lack of a better term, a “real movie” has snuck up on you. Amidst the double-edged mockery, we find ourselves in a situation where Nate is clearly exploiting the trust of the Young Torture Killaz for his personal gain. It wasn’t Nate’s intention, but suddenly he’s in an ethical quandary, and one without a crystal clear path. (Because, let’s face it, the “purple drink” gulping Young Torture Killaz are kinda idiots.)

It’s all leading up to Nate’s big show at LaFleur’s gallery and there are additional complications when he and Takal’s character evolve from being just platonic friends. The ending goes to unexpected places, and delighted this viewer with something you don’t see enough in movies: an actual punchline. “Hellaware” is amusing throughout, but isn’t loaded with laugh-out-loud moments. The ending, however, had me doubled-over.

For a picture so light and droll, you do exit asking, “gee, what would I do in that situation?” That element of depth is perhaps unexpected from scanning the logline. More importantly, by the fifth time you hear “I’ll Cut Yo Dick Off” you will, I swear, start singing along. And you’ll be humming it hours later. And that, I think we can all agree, is funny.

SCORE: 7.5 / 10

“Hellaware” plays at BAMCinemaFest on Saturday, June 22 2013.

Categories: Reviews

Tags: BAMCinemaFest 2013, Hellaware, Jordan hoffman, Michael M. Bilandic, Review, Sophia Takal

Cannes Review: ‘Jeune et Jolie’

Dear Penthouse Forum,

This never happens to me, so I had to write about it. I flew all the way to the Cannes Film Festival to see the best in international cinema and perhaps have a few sips of wine at a cafe along the Mediterranean. But you won’t believe the things I saw in this devilishly elegant theater (red velvet and everything) right on the water.

The movie, “Jeune et Jolie,” opens on the beach. A girl not yet seventeen is bathing topless, and we’re watching her through binoculars. Turns out they’re being held by her brother, which may sound gross, but he’s French and I guess that makes this sort of thing okay. Turns out he’s in cahoots with her to sneak out of a vacation house their family is sharing to go meet this very blonde German kid and lose her virginity. He’ll help, but only if she tells him everything.

She doesn’t quite tell all, and her loss of innocence (or is it discovery of self?) seems to have worked an emotional number on her. Next thing you know it’s a few months later and this young and beautiful (that’s what the title means, by the way) girl is now a high priced Internet call girl.

She has no pimp, and she doesn’t need the money, and it’s not like she’s uneducated. (Listen to her classmates interpret Rimbaud!) She’s doing it because. . .she likes it? Well, maybe that’s it. She does tend to take what can only be described as “Silkwood” showers after each encounter, so there’s a part of her that’s grossed out. The extremely camera-friendly Marine Vacth offers up only a (perfectly structured) stoneface, so “what the hell is she thinking??!” isn’t just what her mother wants to know when she inevitably finds out.

Mom finds out after an older John dies of a heart-attack mid-session. The cops get called in, but since she’s still a minor no criminal charges are pressed. It’s at this point that the movie loses some of its steam, but also starts making a point. What does first world 21st Century sexual exploitation look like? When is sex-positive empowerment socially irresponsible? And how are we in the audience supposed to react to all these lustful moments with all these people around?

While most movie actresses are, indeed, young and beautiful, we don’t frequently see what a life under those conditions would actually be like. I don’t know that Francois Ozon’s film is in any way meant to be typical, but it isn’t impossible to fathom. Its politics are interesting to think about, but that remains very much secondary to the front and center prurience at the heart of this film.

If “Jeune et Jolie” were made by a woman the conversation about it might be different, but the fact remains that this is a movie that bluntly shows a 17 year old girl exploding sex all over the screen. There’s a thing she does with a pillow that I’ll never forget. And something else with a . . . you know what . . . I’m going to let you see the movie and decide for yourself if this for art patrons or raincoat-wearers.

SCORE: 7.5 / 10

Categories: Reviews

Tags: 2013 Cannes Film Festival, Cannes, Francois Ozon, Jeune et Jolie, Jordan hoffman, Review

Cannes Review: My Sweet Pepper Land’

It’s only at a place like the Cannes Film Festival where you can hear about an Iraqi-Kurdish modern western with dark comedy elements and greet it with a nonchalance. Hiner Saleem’s entry in 2013's Un Certain Regard, “My Sweet Pepper Land,” is no masterpiece, but it is an interesting blend of classic cinema tropes set in the extremely specific (and rarely discussed) liberated Kurdistan.

We open in 2003. Saddam Hussein has been ousted and the new Kurdish government is proud to present their first ever execution. “We can have no democracy without security and we can have no security without punishment.” With that, a noose goes around a criminal’s neck, but no one has given thought where to hang him. As the officials stoically look on in wide-angled portraiture (and the condemned’s long legs touch the ground as he dangles) it’s clear that Baran (Korkmaz Arslan) has had enough.

A former leader in the armed resistance he is now a high ranking security official, but pencil pushing in the capital is not for him. (Especially with his mother trying to fix him up with a wife.) He requests a transfer and ends up in Qamarlan on the Turkish border – a hub of weapons and prescription drug trafficking that’s a two hour walk from the closest road now that the Turks have bombed out the bridge.

Also check out: The 10 Best Films of the 2013 Cannes Film Festival

Also en route to Qamarlan is Govand (Golshifteh Farahani,) an educated, independent-minded woman compelled to teach in the village schoolhouse despite the protestations of her neanderthal-minded brothers. She hooks up with Baran en route (along with his Gaucho-attired deputy Reber, played by Suat Usta) and soon they’re back at the village, and met by henchmen of the local warlord Aziz Aga (Tarik Akreyi).

Aziz doesn’t want Govand there because she’s a modern woman and he certainly doesn’t want Baran there because he seems like a Commander who’ll actually enforce the law. We very quickly recognize the Old West dynamic here. We’ve got the new sheriff, his loyal sidekick, the good woman and the bad guy. All we need is the cowboy music.

And we get it! At the station Baran will turn on the radio now and then and, wouldn’t you know it, they get good rockabilly up there. It may be a village with only one phone (at the police station, so “you’ll hear all about love and hens and roosters,” warns Reber) but it also has gorgeous high thread-count bedding that would make an Anthropologie shopper weep. This deviation from strict realism – as well as the dissonance of seeing villains on horseback amid modern houses – works very much in “My Sweet Pepper Land”‘s favor. The gorgeous cinematography both of the landscapes and the interiors are among the film’s chief pleasures.

The inevitable bloody confrontation, however, pulls a bit of a switcheroo, opting not to go with slow-motion or exciting music. The violence is quick and dirty, not at all stylized like the botched capital punishment from the top of the film.

Throughout the film we’ll see Govand taking comfort in playing a metal drum that looks like a giant tagine. It’s echoey tones resemble a marimba’s, but repetitive loops of fast-paced thrumming evoke a kind of drone. I initially thought it was some sort of traditional Kurdish instrument, but after a solid hour of Internet research (oh, the things I do for you!) I could not find out what the thing was called. I sent a hail mary over Twitter. A Turkish friend listed a number of different regional percussion instruments, but a follower from Finland soon recognized what I was describing was a Hang Drum – an instrument created by a Swiss-German collaboration in 2001. It’s quite lovely music and further speaks to “My Sweet Pepper Land”‘s ability to be both modern and traditional. A fine example of a detail not essential to the plot that adds an ineffable quality to this intriguing, enjoyable film.

SCORE: 7.4 / 10

Categories: Reviews

Tags: Cannes 2013, Cannes film festival, Jordan hoffman, Kurdistan, My Sweet Pepper Land, Review

Review: ‘After Earth’

We open with a voice-over, followed immediately by flashbacks. Incredibly, with these bold strokes, “After Earth” announces it will be terrible right from the outset, and woe be upon the person who holds out hope that it will get better after the initial wobbly start. It will not get better, it will only get worse, until you’re actively cheering for a teenage kid to get eaten by a tiger (and wanting the tiger to savor every bite). I didn’t plan to feel this way, and no one could have predicted the best possible outcome for the film would be the brutal murder of a character one of the Smithlettes was portraying, but you did this to me, “After Earth”. You made me root against the good guy, mostly because you made him so incompetent, so repugnant, so unlikable, that you rendered his journey and story arc meaningless. For when is a hero not a hero? When he acts worse than your average guy off the street. “After Earth” stupefies us with nonsense, such little thought and logic went into this idea that it can’t even be considered a rough draft, this is a movie almost daring an audience to emotionally detach throughout. For shame!

To explain the threadbare plot shouldn’t take particularly long, even though the 100-minute running time of “After Earth” lasts around six years. Will Smith, as the delightfully named Cypher Raige, is a general in a futuristic army. He’s human, a descendant of Earthlings forced to flee the planet because “we destroyed it,” though the destruction seems to have been a mix of nuclear bombs, pollution, and natural disasters. 1,000 years later, everyone lives on a planet called Nova Prime, where things are pretty peachy except for the occasional Ursa monster, a predator that is utterly blind, able to hunt based solely upon the scent humans make when they’re afraid. Cypher is FEARLESS, and thus doesn’t secrete the “fear” pheromone, so he’s able to waltz up to these Ursas and wallop them with impunity. He definitely gives them the ol’ “what for,” I tell you. Look here, Ursa, there’s a new sheriff in town, and this one can’t be smelt.

Also check out: The Films of M. Night Shyamalan, Ranked from Best to Worst

Now, set aside your thinking cap for just a moment, the one that says, “well couldn’t they wear airtight suits, or make a perfume, or use missiles, or mix fear smells with poisonous gas, or have robots punch all the Ursas, or use drones that existed a full millennium earlier to hunt the Ursa down, all while they snacked in front of a futuristic monitor?” No! Put all of these thoughts right out of your head! “After Earth” has no time for your foolishness, because it’s too busy getting Cypher and his son, Kitai (Jaden Smith, clearly typecast as Will’s son) together for an adventure. Kitai wants to be a Ranger too, just like his dad, but he doesn’t have the “no fear” part down yet, which would make him Ursa lunch, or dinner, depending on the time of day.

Cypher and Kitai (coincidentally the name of my new CBS pilot) are having trouble connecting, because dad is always out stomping around, secreting nothing but machismo and Old Spice. To alleviate the growing distance between them, Cypher brings Kitai along on a training mission, that, you guessed it, goes horribly wrong. They are then marooned on Earth, and Cypher is hurt, leaving Kitai to perform a dangerous life-saving mission by his lonesome. He’s got his dad to virtually lead him, using futuristic “Go-Pro” technology every step of the way, but he’s going to have to prove he’s got the right stuff, or else they are both, gulp, dead meat.

That’s not a terrible premise. Or rather, it’s not a wholly terrible premise, there are good parts in there, like the father-son bonding, future Rangers, and men who have been named Cypher without any subtext whatsoever. Sadly, as soon as the action switches to Earth, around 20 minutes in, it’s all doom from there on out. Little Kitai fights poisonous slugs, a giant bird, tigers, simians, and ultimately, ugh, himself. Along the way he’ll have to prove he’s every bit the man that dad is, even if dad happens to come off as a complete jerky jerk who raised a son that wouldn’t be fit to deliver newspapers on a rainy day. Indeed, Kitai is the kid you’d put in charge if you were working for Team Ursa, he has so many ways to fail that the scouts would label him a “five-fool player” and draft him the first round of the “nincompoop draft”.

Yes, Kitai is instantly unlikable, when he’s not listening to his parents, he’s proving he knows nothing about the world, and when he is tuning into what his father is saying, it’s usually just so he can come back with a genius rejoinder such as, “I can do it myself, Dad! I don’t need your help!”

So, unlikable hero, a distant and disposable father-son bond, but surely the futuristic aspect of “After Earth” gets in there and salvages this thing, right? Well, no. Not at all. If anything it makes it so much worse, because when the action parts are playing out, riddled with logic problems, you find yourself pining for the quiet stupidity of an abusive dad and his ninny son. For instance, Kitai wears a fancy suit that alerts him to danger by turning black, or to toxins by turning white. Now, whatever you do, don’t ask, “well, does it do something else besides turn color, like say put up a force field, or make him faster, or give him medicine, or maybe turn on an emergency jetpack, or provide a distraction to the predator, or camouflage him somewhat?” No! Do not ask these things, for the suit has just turned white, ooooh, how impressive. Why, they’ve stumbled onto the same lofty technology that the Coors guys use, to tell me when my beer is cold!

Here’s another example – the use of spears. Little Kitai Raige (Best band name ever) is sent out to fight thousands of predators with a mutable spear. Oh, it changes shapes, it can become a scythe, a sword, whatever sort of weapon you like, except for the one that would actually help, something along the lines of a machine gun. Can you imagine fighting off a pack of tiger-wolves with a freaking spear?! Or outrunning simians without anything resembling advanced technology? “After Earth” takes place in a time where we were able to figure out light speed and interstellar travel, but any weapon above “Swiss Army Knife” seems to outpace our ambition. That’s “After Earth” for you, where nothing makes any sense at all, not the weaponry, the relationships, the antagonists, or the mission itself. It’s astoundingly awful.

Thankfully, once you’ve gotten past the terrible logic and meaningless relationships, “After Earth” assaults you with a complete lack of tension. They are trying to kill this Kitai fellow off every ten minutes, only what are the chances of them doing just that? Especially 25 minutes in, when all the “action” commences? Everything in “After Earth” is arbitrary. Kitai must get to a transmitter because he needs to transmit. Cypher must not leave the ship himself because he’s hurt, no one else an be around because they’ve only got the one camera crew and so on, and so forth. He has exactly enough oxygen to finish the mission! Safety, each evening, is the exact distance he could plausibly reach! Cypher can man the computer interface 24/7 because he never needs bathroom breaks or food! And so on, and so forth, into the cold receding distance of irrelevance.

The level to which “After Earth” is a catastrophe is amazing, but what’s even more impressive is the lengths everyone must have had to gone to for such an epic level of failure. Everyone involved, from director M. Night Shyamalan all the way down to Jaden Smith is culpable, and truly capable of so much better. “After Earth” shouldn’t be seen on this planet, and if we ever discover new ones, habitable ones, we should take steps to make sure it’s never shown there either, just in case.

SCORE: 1.2 / 10

Laremy wrote the book on film criticism and thinks Shamalan’s best movie is actually “Unbreakable”.

Categories: Reviews

Tags: After Earth, Jaden smith, Laremy legel, M. night shyamalan, Review, Will smith

Cannes Review: ‘Rock the Casbah’

It’s going to take a lot more than a movie to level-up the peace process between Israel and Palestine, but Yair Horowitz’ striking new film “Rock the Casbah” ranks quite high on the list that succinctly expresses just how difficult and intractable the situation is. While it does dip its toe into a maudlin pool on more than one occasion, it also exudes the punk rock attitude implied in its title, ensuring that the film is dynamic – dare I say entertaining – and not just depressing.

It’s 1989, the first Intifada, and a busload of young IDF grunts are billeted on the Gaza Strip. Their cut-from-marble commander (Angel Bonnani) quickly lays out the rules. They are entering the city to calm things down. Things will be “back to normal in two or three weeks.” The blue magazines have rubber bullets, the red ones are real. They are only to switch to red after a series of explicit transgressions occur. Anyone who has seen a film before can easily recognize Checkov’s weapon and anyone who has read about urban guerrilla fighting knows the fog of war knows no checklist.

As the team recites their memorized pacification rules (fire in the air, then the legs, only then shoot to kill) they enter the city, removing PLO propaganda and literally stoking out fires. Some are more polite about it than others.

A common talking point about asymmetrical warfare is that one side has guns, the other merely rocks. “Rock the Casbah” shows how rocks hurled from a labyrinth of rooftops are more than just pests, especially when the hurlers are children and teens. “I don’t need a dead kid on my conscious – you shoot!” is a particularly effective line.

In time the rocks are replaced with a washing machine – a bizarre image but nonetheless deadly for one of the infantrymen. Here’s where “Rock the Casbah” segues into its more character-driven half, when four soldiers are stationed on the roof where the appliance was dropped. Our hero is Tomer (Yon Tumarkin) the melancholy pacifist, who seems to be reflecting from twenty years hence. There’s also Aki (Roy Nik) a hot-head, Haim (Iftach Rave) something of a slob and group leader Ariel (Yotam Ishay) a philosopher on short time itching to get the hell out of Israel to marijuana-friendly Amsterdam. It is he who brings the radio, and the radio which brings the titular Clash song.

The Palestinian home they occupy is portrayed sympathetically. They claim no knowledge of the incident – not exactly true, but the implication is that they never condoned it. They have a moppety boy who is obsessed with playing around with the soldiers, much to his mother’s consternation. This leads to a predictable but nonetheless tense moment where the boy gets his hands on live weapons.

“Rock the Casbah” takes side trips into the life of an IDF grunt, complete with dopey morale-boosting concerts and a peek at the Secret Service’s interrogation techniques. Most striking is the moment when TK’s character breaks reality to comment on his situation from the future. It isn’t done with voice over, but a wistful, detailed monologue loaded with poetic imagery. The reaction from his pot smoking comrades work well for comedy, but this highlight resonates during the film’s final violent reel.

“Rock the Casbah” is a tad frustrating if only because so much of it is so good. I wish Horowitz trusted his actors enough to expunge some on-the-nose dialogue and the folly of portentous slow motion. Given the world’s outrage about the Israeli occupation of Gaza, it is essential to encourage films that do not demonize the individuals on either side of the conflict. This aspect, plus the truly nerve-racking fighting scenes, make this a film worth seeing and discussing.

SCORE: 7.3 / 10

Categories: Reviews

Tags: Cannes 2013, Israel, Jordan hoffman, Palestine, Review, Rock the Casbah, Yair Horowitz

Cannes Review: ‘Only Lovers Left Alive’

Some jokers out there will tell you that Jim Jarmusch’s new film “Only Lovers Left Alive” is about vampires. Those are the types of people the vampires in this movie roll their eyes at.

Tilda Swinton (Eve) and Thomas Hiddleston (Adam) are two “spookily entangled” (to use Einstein’s phrase) individuals. Eternal outsiders. Spiritually connected. Slow moving, withdrawn and the smartest people in the room by a hundred fold. They ought to be, as they’ve been around since the dawn of time, seem to have knowledge of upcoming events (“Have the water wars started?” “No, they’re still all about oil,”) and have had a hand in creating many of mankind’s major works of art. Or, part of them at least. Adam only gave Schubert a section of a symphony (an adagio) because he wanted a “reflection in the world.”

A reflection? Wait, so this movie is about vampires? Well, I suppose, as the characters (and this also includes a Tangier-based “Christopher Marlowe” played by John Hurt) do need the occasional sip of blood to survive. And the pure stuff, not the tainted garbage most humans carry inside them. But this film really is about artists – committed artists who live and suffer at the fringes of society. They have intense knowledge about certain things, like the Latin names of all plants and animals, or knowing the exact date a guitar is made just by touching it, but they live in a shadow world. They can only exist at night, and even then it is just a shuffle between occasional creation and getting their next fix.

Acquiring blood is a real chore – killing is so 15th century, only done as a last resort, so wheeling and dealing with doctors being far more civilized. The nourishing sips from elegant liqueur glasses are shot in full euphoric junkie style, causing the incisors of our heroes to temporary sharpen up into excited fangs.

Hiddleston’s Adam is a reclusive musician – a rock genius who layers tracks in a dilapidated but gorgeous old house in Detroit. Its interior is a tsunami of antique shop splendor, with personal effects from throughout the centuries cluttering every frame. A wall adorned in pictures (old friends?) is like the white board scene from “Cabin in the Woods” for snotty intellectuals. There’s Kafka, there’s Buster Keaton, there’s Neil Young and so on.

Eve, who may be more of a muse than anything else, starts off in Tangier but decides to come to Detroit after an iChat with Adam. Traveling is a hassle (all those night flights) but we get the impression they don’t stay apart from one another too long. Adam takes Eve on some night trips through the bombed-out industrial wasteland of Detroit. A suggested trip to the Motown museum is shot down. “I’m more of a Stax girl,” Swinton says, one of a dozen note-perfect dead-pan deliveries.

Swinton (who, let’s face it, actually is a vampire) is perfect here. A lesser actress would be chomping into the scenery, but she and Jarmusch have the confidence to throw half of her great lines away. You don’t laugh until a beat later, when what she’s said actually registers.

A bit of some actual plot starts to sneak in when Swinton’s sister Ava (Mia Wasikowska) appears on the scene. Adam’s go-between with the world (Anton Yelchin, hidden behind rock hair) is still hideously uncool by their standards, but for a “zombie” he’s all right to hang out with for a night, a decision that leads to some unfortunate business.

The real star of this movie is the tone. It’s the original music (by Jozef van Wissem and Squirrel, if that’s a real thing) and the unending barrage of signifiers, sometimes literally unpacked before our eyes. Shakespeare, Jules Verne, Ornette Coleman, James Joyce, David Foster Wallace, William Lawes and even Jack White all get referenced at some point along the way.

But “Only Lovers Left Alive” is an exhibit A example of how to use style to enhance substance, not overwhelm it. I was lucky enough to see this at the Cannes Film Festival, and could not help but compare it with another “Only” film debuting here, Nicolas Winding Refn’s lazy and trite (though beautiful) “Only God Forgives.” The distinction between an artist like Jarmusch and an all-sizzle-no-steak slave to style film like Refn is clear. Whereas “God” is posturing, “Lovers” is, by the time you get to its conclusion, a deeply affecting tale about the addiction to bad love and its consequences.

“Only Lovers Left Alive” is, in my opinion, the next great midnight classic. Much like its characters, it has no business being out in the daylight. It is hazy and dreamy and if you fall asleep for a few minutes here and there that’s totally fine – perhaps even preferable. Jarmusch’s last film “The Limits Of Control” failed to connect with many people (though I loved it) and this one ought to be much more of a crowd pleaser. For the right crowd, that is. Not the zombies.

SCORE: 9.2 / 10

Categories: Reviews

Tags: Cannes 2013, Jim Jarmusch, Jordan hoffman, Only Lovers Left Alive, Review, Tilda Swinton

Cannes Review: ‘Nothing Bad Can Happen’

Be careful who you pray for. That’s a potential takeaway from “Nothing Bad Can Happen,” the first feature from German film director Katrin Gebbe. This bleak and somewhat sadistic picture is the type of movie that unfolds like a slow car wreck. You know something bad is going to happen, you just aren’t sure what, or how, and when it eventually happens it is repulsive and yet you still can’t turn away. Upon reflection, however, there are moments of beauty, making the whole enterprise a tad difficult to wrap your head around.

We open with young Tore (Julius Feldmeier) emerging from the water. This extremely skinny (and somewhat “simple”-looking) kid is a newly baptized member of a self-proclaimed group of Jesus Freaks. They are rowdy and tattooed and hang around in public spaces behaving like any other normal group of kids until something calls to them. In Tore’s case, it’s a minivan with a troubled engine. He lays hands upon it, prays and, glory be to God, it’s running again. The skeptic behind the wheel, Benno (Sascha Gersak), is grateful for the help, but hesitant to agree it was the work of the Lord. When Tore invites him to a Jesus Freaks gathering, it seems like it’s the last we’ll see of him, but this isn’t the case.

Benno shows up at the prayer meeting/thrash-rock concert just in time to catch Tore have an epileptic seizure. While Tore seems convinced it is the Holy Ghost making himself acquainted, he still takes up Benno’s offer to crash at his pad. Soon we meet his wife and two kids – a sullen teenage girl and a moppety son.

Also Check Out: The 10 Best Films of the 2013 Cannes Film Festival

Something about the family, however, seems a bit. . .off. You notice it immediately in the glances from the plain looking wife (Astrid, played by Annika Kuhl) and freshly nubile daughter (Sanny, played by Swantje Kohlhof.) There are snipey comments directed toward Benno. (Their home and its ragged garden is at least partially government-assisted.) After a trip to an amusement park and some awkward birthday gift-giving, we learn that Benno is not the kids’ biological father, but Mom’s new boyfriend.

Benno has a pretty short fuse and after an angry confrontation Tore heads back to his group house. When he discovers that his roommate takes the rules of chastity none too seriously he’s back on the streets again. His personal faith is unbroken, but he has nowhere to turn but back to Benno and his family.

There are some story beats that are more or less predictable – Tore and Sanny grow close (their scene of intimacy is the best in the entire film) and then Tore uncovers some dark secrets about Benno.

I take back what I just said. The best scene in the movie – and the one people will talk about when this is more widely seen – involves Benno, Astrid, Tore and a plateful of force-fed rotten chicken. As saintly Tore stays with the family longer, the cruelty of the adults increases, and it isn’t just Benno that gets involved. Whereas the beginning of the film is elliptical with the transgressions, the end goes all-in for revulsion.

“Nothing Bad Can Happen” is divided into three chapters: Faith, Love and Hope. (Amusing, as Ulrich Seidl’s “Paradise” trilogy has the same titles as well, just in a different order.) As Tore makes his way toward his inevitable Redeemer role, we realize he can only do it by renouncing a part of his faith. Not the part that wouldn’t turn the other cheek, but the part that is convinced he is in communion with the divine. The moment he admits to doctors he is an epileptic reminded me a great deal of Hillary Swank’s confession of having a sexual identity crisis in “Boys Don’t Cry.”

“Nothing Bad Can Happen” is not action packed. It is even something of a “rough sit,” as the lingo goes. It does, however, seep in. Snatches of scenes played out it my mind days after the film ended, and while I may not be entirely certain I enjoyed the film, I get what the filmmaker was going for. There’s some good, tonal stuff going on here and Katrin Gebbe is definitely one to keep an eye on.

SCORE: 7.0 / 10

Categories: Reviews

Tags: Cannes 2013, Cannes film festival, Jordan hoffman, Nothing bad can happen, Review

Review: ‘Now You See Me’

Rare is the modern magician movie that isn’t really a con-man movie in disguise, in which everything is but one mere flashback away from not being what it seems, cashing in emotional stakes for logical sneaks. Louis Leterrier’s “Now You See Me” is no exception, with one character repeatedly reminding us and his on-screen marks alike that “the closer you think you are, the less you will actually see.”

That character would be sleight-of-hand artist J. Daniel Atlas (Jesse Eisenberg), who has been teamed up with mentalist Merritt McKinney (Woody Harrelson), pickpocket Jack Wilder (Dave Franco) and daredevil Henley Reeves (Isla Fisher) by a mysterious benefactor. A year later, they emerge as Vegas’ hottest new act, the Four Horsemen, and proceed to carry out full-blown heists before a paying audience. Owner Arthur Tressler (Michael Caine) is stumped; debunker Thaddeus Bradley (Morgan Freeman) is intrigued; and FBI Agent Dylan Rhodes (Mark Ruffalo), paired off with Interpol’s Alma Dray (Mélanie Laurent), is pissed at both how sly and smug these culprits are proving to be.

As written by Ed Solomon, Boaz Yakin and Edward Ricourt, the film itself is sly and smug in kind, fleetingly enjoyable for all of its old-school showmanship and high-tech hokiness when not paying lip service to our lapsed need for classic wonderment and constantly drawing attention to the fact that you shan’t dare fall for what you’re seeing at any given moment. Director Leterrier (“The Transporter,” “The Incredible Hulk”) tends to traffic in the perfectly watchable and dutifully keeps the plates spinning here, even if Ruffalo’s gruff skeptic routine gets old quick, Caine and Freeman’s sage-off bears little fruit, and an energetic apartment fight and subsequent car chase feel singularly devoted to landing Franco his own Bourne-like franchise.

Also Check Out: “Now You See Me” Asks If A Movie Can Have Too Many Stars

While Franco and the others get along cattily enough in their scenes together, the Horsemen are a team of card-tossing, modern-day Robin Hoods who ultimately prove to be about as elusive as their shadowy puppet master, whose own elaborate machinations and misdirections require both incredible foresight and a remarkable amount of wealth. Then again, we all remember that Arthur C. Clarke line about how any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic, and it’s tempting to chalk the predetermined razzle-dazzle of it all up to a slightly shinier sleight-of-hand for the digital age.

Admittedly, in spite of the film’s insistent reminders and my own raised guard, I nonetheless found myself bested by its final reveal. Does the moment itself constitute a great twist, and “Now You See Me” a brilliantly crafted puzzle by extension? Hardly. The whole of it is made of flash paper, intended to burn brightly for an instant before vanishing from your memory without a trace.

SCORE: 7.2 / 10

Categories: Reviews

Tags: Isla fisher, Jesse eisenberg, Louis Leterrier, Mélanie laurent, Michael caine, Morgan freeman, Now You See Me, Review, William goss

Review: Shadow Dancer

This review was originally published on January 27, 2012 as part of Film.com’s coverage of the 2012 Sundance Film Festival.

“Shadow Dancer” takes place in a world of men with tarps. They lie in wait, inevitably armed, ready to create messes if only so that they might then be cleaned up. This is the reality of Belfast during the Troubles, first in 1973 as Collette McVeigh (Maria Laird) sees her younger brother die in cold blood, then in 1993 as she (now played by Andrea Riseborough) participates in retaliatory actions alongside surviving siblings Connor (Domhnall Gleeson, son of Brendan) and Gerry (Aiden Gillen) on behalf of the Irish Republican Army.

She fails to set off a bomb in London, though, and gets nabbed by MI5’s Mac (Clive Owen), who knows all about her family, including her dead brother and – more importantly – her  young son. Help us, he says, and we’ll protect you and your boy; don’t, and you’re in prison for 25 years. She reluctantly agrees to cooperate, trading in her blue dress for a red jacket and struggling to navigate between Mac’s efforts towards peace and the IRA’s attacks in the name of justice.

Aside from his documentaries, ”Project Nim” and “Man on Wire,” James Marsh directed the middle entry of BBC Films’ chilling ”Red Riding” trilogy, while director of photography Rob Hardy was responsible for shooting the first chapter, so it’s little wonder why “Shadow Dancer” so keenly shares the same foreboding mood of those films. It’s a milieu which subtly suggests era-appropriate accuracy while simultaneously evoking both a sense of modern relevance and the unyielding unease of such a long-spanning period of conflict. The atmosphere and politics are then compressed to a scale more akin to “Animal Kingdom,” in which a family of criminals comes to destroy itself by means of self-preservation and underhanded dealings.

The tension of Tom Bradby’s screenplay (adapted from his own novel) stems from individual loyalties, whether within the IRA, MI5 or the McVeigh household, and the conversations and confrontations which follow are terse and tense in equal measure. And caught in the middle of it all is Riseborough (“W.E.”), giving a tremendously vulnerable and resolute turn as a protector at home and avenger abroad forced to reconsider the extent to which she is capable of avoiding the crossfire on all sides. Collette’s complexion is pale and pure, her face a weapon all its own: innocuous enough to blend in on a crowded subway platform, steadfast during Mac’s initial interrogation, trustworthy opposite a pressing IRA leader (David Wilmot). In the cold, cruel world of the film, Riseborough internalizes her ever-mounting struggles quite superbly.

Saddled with a more conventional agent-with-a-conscience arc, Owen still applies pressure to assets like Collette and superiors like Kate Fletcher (Gillian Anderson) with necessary conviction, a conviction shared by Gleeson and Gillen, both good as Collette’s brothers, two of many characters who find themselves perpetually second-guessing their allies but are never lacking for genuine concern towards their loved ones.

Few characters here are clean-cut villains, with the overcast skies of Ireland every bit as gray as the nearest moral compass. Like the political turmoil which inspired it, “Shadow Dancer” is fueled by the fire to do the right thing and the sacrifice that must follow, and for 100 minutes, it’s a crackerjack ordeal to behold.

SCORE: 8.3 / 10

Categories: Reviews

Tags: Andrea riseborough, Clive owen, James marsh, Shadow dancer, Sundance 2012, Sundance film festival

Cannes Review: ‘Jimmy P: Psychotherapy of a Plains Indian’

I want to talk a little bit about boring movies. Boring comes in a few different varieties, and they are different from plain old bad movies. They offer nothing to laugh or scoff at. They just do their thing and, when you are done consuming them, they just lay there asking “what? You wanted more? That’s all you get.”

There’s the slow burn – where you can sense the inevitable conclusion coming, a vice grip and its methodical turn. When done right, you laser in on each scene, savoring the nuance of performance or writing. A good example I’ll elect as this subgroup’s representative is Cristi Puiu’s “Death of Mr. Lazarescu” – exhausting but tremendously rewarding.

Then there’s a “zone” movie. I’m gonna go ahead and pick Bela Tarr’s “Turin Horse” for this group. Repetitive, monotonous, but when it has a gorgeous texture and a tone that exudes importance and truth and a richness of history, a film like this can send you off (or in) on a journey in a way few other artforms can. You leave dazed and worn-out, but, if lucky, a tiny bit transformed.

Also check out: The 10 Best Films of the 2013 Cannes Film Festival

Then there are movies, like Arnaud Desplechin’s “Jimmy P: Psychotherapy of a Plains Indian,” that are just “not-horrible” enough, yet are still thoroughly and transcendently boring, that you come away with almost no reaction at all. It’s like being in a rush but you need to wolf down some lunch to prevent getting lightheaded. You inhale a sandwich without tasting it. The mayonnaise wasn’t spoiled so it doesn’t give you a stomach ache, but there’s no way you can ever reproduce the taste in your mind. If Desplechin wanted to make a movie like this, well, mission accomplished.

So what’s “Jimmy P: Psychotherapy of a Plains Indian” about? It’s. . . oh, it’s so boring. But here goes. Benecio Del Toro plays a WWII vet who suffered a head injury. As such he has horrible blackouts and blindness spells. His older sister (who takes care of him) takes him to a special army hospital in Topeka, Kansas. The docs can’t find anything wrong with him. A shrink looks into it, but Del Toro is a Blackfoot, and he all but says “what do I know from these Indians?”

They call in Mathieu Amalric, a quirky anthropologist who is an expert on the Mojave (close enough) and who also dabbles in psychoanalysis. If he can’t cure him, then no one can!

You might be thinking, hey, this doesn’t sound that horrible. And that’s the problem with the movie. You keep waiting for something, anything, to kick in. It never does. Instead the two of them just yap at each other.

Listen: I’m no philistine. A can handle a two-hander of people talking. Hell, I’ll even go and watch a play from time to time if I can’t get out of it. But, seriously, there is just no life, nothing interesting going on between these two. This is not “The Chief’s Speech.” What you learn is that Del Toro’s character had a few sad things happen to him as a kid and young adult. Nothing too bad, in the great scheme of things. But, once he talks about them, he’s cured. The end.

Along the way there are filler scenes between Amalric (whom I usually adore) and some gal he’s seeing. But it’s barely in there. Yet, when she splits there’s a teary eyed letter where she bursts emotion all over the place. So, at the one hour and fifty-five mark we’re supposed to care about this woman we barely know, which is secondary to the main plot that we also don’t care about. It doesn’t land.

Amalric is fine in the piece and Del Toro is okay, I guess. Desplechin and he decided that Jimmy P. should speak Every. Single. Word. As. If. It. Is. A. Sentence. It’s almost unendurable. He’s just a frowny sack of potatoes in this film and, yeah, I feel sorry for him, but I also don’t want to see him mope for two hours if I’m not getting anything out of it.

Most baffling: this is based on a true story. So Desplechin at some point learned about this and said “yes! I will be the one to bring this fantastic tale to the screen!” Only, there’s just nothing there. Depressed Indian talks to shrink, tells bland stories. That’s really it. There are moments when you think there will be some conflict about new psychological technique locking horns with more traditional methods – or maybe some great insight into the struggles of American Indians. . . but not really. Instead it’s just boring – and boring in a way that apparently has no endgame.

3.0

Categories: Reviews

Tags: Arnaud Desplechin, Benicio del toro, Cannes 2013, Cannes film festival, Jimmy P: Psychotherapy of a Plains Indian, Jordan hoffman, Review

Review: ‘The East’

This review was originally published on January 21, 2013 as part of Film.com’s coverage of the 2013 Sundance Film Festival.

If “The East” were from anyone other than writer/director Zal Batmanglij and writer/star Brit Marling, I’d be much more excited about it. That may not be fair to the work, but it is how I feel. Their independently produced sci-fi thriller “Sound of My Voice” was so sharp, exciting and itching to dazzle that this solid but conventional outing can’t help but feel a tiny bit like a sophomore slump. My number one takeaway from “The East” is annoyance — why did these two feel they needed to make their movie in this traditional way?

“The East” is still a good yarn, though, and I shouldn’t blame it for being made by people who made it. Brit Marling plays Sarah, a whip-smart young intelligence agent recruited by a firm providing information and security to corporate clients. An Anonymous-esque group called The East is currently targeting individuals at the top of conglomerates whose products and practices have deleterious environmental consequences. These actions, called “jams,” are more than just street theater. The East’s “eye for an eye” attitude is heightened radicalism, and while their intentions certainly elicit our sympathies, their actions are only for too-far-gone believers.

Dyeing her hair and hanging out with banjo players gets Sarah in with the freegan anarchists fairly quickly. At first the collective, ostensibly led by Benji (Alexander Skarsgard) but balanced by Izzy (Ellen Page), seems like a weirdo cult. This perception soon fades, though maybe that is because Sarah’s attitude toward them starts to shift.

Marling’s character is no mere blank vessel, though; her boss Sharon (Patricia Clarkson) describes her as “smart enough to be at a disadvantage.” She’s also a practicing Christian, so The East’s call for social justice surely resonates with her. When she tags along for jams, she is torn between doing her job, warning the marks who may be in danger or going through with the plan.

Sarah and the other group members are all fascinating. An evening of spin the bottle may sound like trite screenwriting, but Batmanglij and Marling wrote it as a marvelous, revealing sequence. Some of the revelations concerning how the members of the group got there may seem a little obvious, but each of the performers nail the desperation that comes with total political commitment.

My main beef with the film is the somewhat facile attitude toward big fat corporations. Come on, every single one of them is poisoning us? I’m cool with “The East” believing that, but not so sure about “The East” believing that.

That said, I offer genuine huzzahs to the film’s conclusion. Without giving away final twists or action beats, this is a movie that proposes a genuine, intelligent solution, both for the main character and for us. It comes at you kinda quickly (and economically, in about three wordless shots), but it hit me like a bag of dumpster-dived apples to the gut.

It feels strange to be disappointed by what is, by all rights, a good movie. Perhaps that’s just because of my absolute admiration of “Sound of My Voice,” with its ineffable tone and ambiguous plotting. But if “The East” has any lesson it’s that complete, fanatical devotion may not be the best course of action. To that end, I ultimately recommend “The East” in any context.

SCORE: 7.5 / 10

Categories: Reviews

Tags: Alexander skarsgard, Brit Marling, Ellen page, Patricia Clarkson, Sound of my Voice, Sundance, Sundance 2013, The East, Zal Batmanglij

Cannes Review: ‘The Last Days on Mars’

My heart lives dead center of the Venn diagram for hard science-fiction author Ben Bova and low-rent schlockmeister Roger Corman. Yet “The Last Days on Mars” leaves me as cold as the inky void of space. This would-be smart horror pic with the elevator pitch you can’t refuse – “The Thing” on Mars – should be kept on file for further study of just how to screw up what ought to be an awesome movie.

The first thirty-five minutes (I timed it) are rock solid. An international team of scientists are on a Mars mission and director Ruairi Robertson wisely decides to just throw us in and let us work out the characters, power dynamics and technical capabilities for ourselves. The team is led by Canadian Charles (Elias Koteas) and the top (competitive) scientists are Russian Marko (Goran Kostic) and Briton Kim (Olivia Williams.) Both are driven to a fault – their desire to find more than just dirt on the red planet may be making them a little nuts, so much so that they will lie cheat or steal to get a few more minutes at a dig site.

We’re witness to all this through the eyes of the American Chief Engineer Vincent (Liev Schreiber,) a bit of a downer due to a panic attack he suffered on the six month “ride in a coffin” it took to get to Mars. They’re all looking at another six months in just a few hours as their current tour of duty is about to end – but not before one last attempt to make a discovery.

When Marko gets a chance to go out in the rover one additional time, sending Kim (the film’s only interesting character) into a rage, curious microbes appear to have reacted positively to a test he planted. Before he has a chance to dub himself the most important scientist in the history of mankind the ground swallows him up. The team reacts to his partner’s mayday and that’s when this well-observed look at working scientists down-shifts into disinteresting schlock.

I’ll leave the specifics of “how” out of it and leave you with two words: Space Zombies. And, not even cool looking Space Zombies! At the aforementioned thirty-five minute mark we get our first kill, followed by the usual tropes of comrades getting infecting and rising from the dead. Glimpses of the baddies got a well-deserved chuckle from some folks in the audience. None of the action is shot in a particularly interesting manner, and the only differentiator is that there are some good “c’mon! c’mon! c’mon!” moments while waiting for decompression chambers and airlocks to reset.

The other thing that makes this film unique is very baritone Schreiber in an action picture’s leading role. He plays his trauma flashback scenes in a rather sympathetic way; he and director Robertson decide to go the unlikely hero route to such an extent that he is something of a space wuss. This makes for a nice act three (and good last scene) but that doesn’t do much to alter the great big dud that is act two.

Romola Garai plays “the girl” and she’s absolutely gorgeous, but there’s not much in this film to let you connect with their relationship. Schreiber saves it to an extent with some unusual performance choices, but when you compare this ending to the emotional supernova of Danny Boyle’s “Sunshine” it comes way short.

The opening of the film and its wonderful not-that-different tech ought will delight fans of, say, Duncan Jones’ “Moon” or, as I already name-checked, the “Grand Tour” novels by Ben Bova, but the remainder of the film does nothing more than remind us what a visionary a fella like Paul W.S. Anderson is. Not that his virus-zombie films aren’t superlatively stupid, but at least they have some panache.

SCORE: 5.0 / 10

Categories: Reviews

Tags: Cannes 2013, Elias koteas, Jordan hoffman, Review, The last days on mars

Cannes Review: ‘The Great Beauty’

Brashly stepping up and standing beside Giovanni from Antonioni’s “La Notte” and Marcello from Fellini’s “La Dolce Vita” is Jep Gambardella from Paolo Sorrentino’s “La Grand Bellezza.” Go out on the town with this bunch and you are sure to observe plenty of outrageous behavior and perhaps have a melancholy romantic entanglement. Just be sure you are in a five thousand dollar tailored-suit, or don’t bother humiliating yourself.

Translated into English the title of Sorrentino’s film means “The Great Beauty,” but, please, let’s leave it in its mother tongue. There’s not a single frame of this abundantly gorgeous film that isn’t pure Italian. Gambardella’s world-weary look back at his sweet life, eclipsed by his turning sixty-five, is a dizzying fantasia of flash and filigree, and what it lacks in direct narrative is well patched-over with frenetic and emotion-rich sequences. This movie is a sight and sound workout.

“La Grand Bellezza” is so indulgent it actually has three opening scenes – all marvelous. First, one of a series of moments unrelated to the plot in any strict way. The camera floats around a historical religious site, where Asian tourists snap photos. A man falls to the ground, perhaps victim to Stendhal Syndrome. Then black, and a scream. What follows is among the finest choreographed bacchanalia sequences I’ve laid eyes upon. At its close we meet Jep (Toni Servillo), debonair, cultured and just intellectual enough to feel great sadness at a beautiful life wasted on frivolous hedonism.

The third opening is Jep at work – he is an interviewer for culture journal and he’s watching an performance piece where a naked woman wearing makeshift hijab and Soviet flag painted on her pubis rams her head into the side of a two-thousand year old aqueduct (as a perfectly framed train crosses the background at magic hour.) During the following interview Jep reduces her to tears and exposes her as a fraud with just a few sharp remarks. He isn’t cruel, he’s just seen it all, and, most importantly, he’s unimpressed.

These episodes continue – Jep quietly strolls among Rome’s most decadent and elegant settings at a slight remove. He easily seduces a gorgeous but intellectually unstimulating women. He ditches her, uninterested in looking at her Facebook photos, announcing in voice over that, at his age, there is simply no time to do things he doesn’t want to do.

In time we learn that Jep as he is now is not quite what Jep envisioned for himself. As a young man he wrote a novel, and was involved in leftist causes and, naturally, had a pure, perfect love that got away. To Sorrentino’s credit we only catch glimpses of this through flashbacks or overheard dialogue. Not much will stop the mad rush of Jep’s study of the carnival that is modern Rome.

Along the way he meets a 12-year-old girl that’s an action painter, visits an underground plastic surgery church, sees a man who can make giraffes disappear, looks at a photographer’s lifetime of self-portraits, meets up with an old comrade/heroin junkie looking to marry off his 40 year old stripper daughter and, eventually, hosts a dinner party for a 104-year-old Mother Teresa-esque saint. This last one comes at the end and, not surprisingly, is the encounter with the most depth – though you shouldn’t worry that the movie goes all soft or anything.

The great thing about “La Grande Bellezza” is that, once you get on its wavelength, you soon recognize that if one sequence isn’t doing it for you, the next one might. At two-and-a-half hours Sorrentino offers up a maximalists’ delight. Even with the expanded running time, however, it is very difficult to know or care about many of the side characters in Jep’s life. “Wait, which one was that?” may be a common refrain among those discussing the picture afterwards.

SCORE: 7.7 / 10

Categories: Reviews

Tags: Cannes 2013, Cannes film festival, Jordan hoffman, La Grand Bellezza, Paolo sorrentino, Review, The Great Beauty

Review: ‘Epic’

When you name your film “Epic” you’re probably just setting yourself up for failure, right? For instance, if I named a documentary “Awesome Sauce” people would likely complain that it wasn’t awesome, or even sauce, and they’d be well within their rights to do so. Still, naming aside, “Epic” could have been good, except that it wasn’t, it was stone cold terrible, something even a six-year-old might scoff at. I know, I’m just as sad as you are about the whole thing.

The plot is simplistic, if not exactly simple. Mary Katherine and her dad, Bomba (voiced by Jason Sudeikis) are trying to reconnect after what one can only assume was a very long estrangement. It’s tough to piece the timeline together, but evidently Mary’s mom passed away, but only after the mom and Bomba divorced, probably because his name was Bomba. Erm, no, it was because Bomba’s life work was finding little “Leaf Men” in the forest, so he didn’t have room for a special lady in his life, as he was always too busy traipsing through the forest, hoping to catch a glimpse of these Leaf Men riding their hummingbirds (what would a couple’s therapist have made of that?).

The Leaf Men, of course, do actually exist, Bomba is on to something, and they are locked in a perennial battle with a group called the Boggins, who only want to see the forest destroyed. These worlds, big Bomba land, and the tiny Leaf Man one, will collide in old and not exciting ways, playing out something like “Honey, I Shrunk the Kids” meets “Apocalypto”. No, that’s not precisely accurate, as that might have actually been an interesting film, whereas this one is decidedly not. “Epic” is classic commercialism with no real connection to organic storytelling, odd, because the tale takes place completely surrounded by nature.

Issue number one for the movie is death. Not as in “the first issue kills the story,” it’s more like “Epic” decides to tackle death exclusively in the opening act. Sure, that’s an odd place to start a children’s film, but it’s exactly where “Epic” plants its flag for the opening ten minutes. Our teenage heroine, Mary Katherine (voiced by Amanda Seyfried), has a recently deceased mother. This seems to be a common theme in family fare, though I have no idea why films meant for young people so often go this route, but it’s not a deal breaker in and of itself. But then too the main fella, Nod (voiced by Josh Hutcherson) has a recently deceased dad. Is this so they can relate? Or perhaps form their own “Brady Bunch”?

There’s no telling, but thankfully death isn’t through with us yet. The bad guys, who are pretty much orcs riding crows, launch an attack on the Leaf Men (who are pretty much elves). During the attack, one of the Boggins (orcs) is thrown off his ride and falls to his death. You read that correctly, he plummets and then splats on a car windshield. Evidently life is cheap within “Epic,” which brings us to our fourth victim, Mary Katherine’s turtle, who it’s hinted was left to starve to death, and all because her idiot father didn’t feed him for a couple years. So kids, take note, death is right around the corner, adults are perishable, and feeding your animals isn’t mandatory. Awesome sauce!

The screenplay credits a stunning five writers, which means that everyone took a shot at making this film a little worse. Jokes like Bomba being clumsy (and falling in the forest) are repeated continually, a putrid love angle is considered, and there’s no real pacing or story arc to speak of. Scene by scene, you hope they’ll pull out of it, but everything proceeds exactly as you’d predict, until the movie finally goes “splat”. There’s the rebellious hero theme, the “gotta get back to my world” nonsense, and the Queen of Nature (voiced by Beyonce!) just wants everyone to smile and for the forest to stay in balance. The overly sullen protector guy, Ronin (Colin Farrell) learns a lesson, oh heck, everyone learns a lesson, until the lessons beat you about the head and shoulders like mosquitos next to a swamp. Plus, that python coming to get you is the third act, egads, it might be a decent plan to take your little ones to an hour of this … and then bail for the playground or greener pastures.

To hand out a few kudos, accentuating the positive, Aziz Ansari as “Mub the slug” was generally fun to listen to; he had the only jokes in the entire endeavor that landed. Additionally, Christoph Waltz voices an excellent villain, Mandrake, though the character is massively one note. Sadly, their contributions are like a stone against a raging river of obvious, nothing and no one could have saved this movie (short of starting over).

Near the end, “Epic” truly reaches new depths when it doesn’t gild the lily, it blasts it with glitter spray paint until there’s nothing left but a wilted flower and a noxious fumes. “Epic” is a film that looks relatively good, and it has a somewhat positive message (once you get past the mortality angle), but it’s going to be pure punishment for adults. Sure, parents regularly make sacrifices for their children, but it sure seems like everyone’s time could be better spent watching a real movie, with real characters, based in a world where creatively isn’t forgotten, and decent storytelling rules the day .

SCORE: 3.0 / 10

Laremy wrote the book on film criticism and thinks crows have been unfairly targeted by the animation business.

Categories: Reviews

Tags: Animation, Dreamworks, Epic, Laremy legel, Review, Slugs