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Sabtu, 26 Oktober 2013

HANNIBAL (2013) SEASON 01 [AIRING]

Tanggal Rilis : TV Series (2013– )
Jenis Film : Crime | Drama | Thriller
Diperankan Oleh : Hugh Dancy, Mads Mikkelsen, Caroline Dhavernas

Ringkasan Cerita HANNIBAL (2013) SEASON 01 [AIRING] :

Will Graham (Hugh Dancy) is a criminal profiler FBI on the hunt for a serial killer. Will has a unique way of thinking which gives him the ability to empathize with the psychopaths he hunts. This ability helps him to understand them and to almost know what makes them tick. But when the mind of the twisted killer he’s pursuing is too complicated for even him to understand, he enlists the help of one of the premier psychiatric doctors in the country, Dr Hannibal Lecter (Mads Mikkelsen). Together they form a partnership to assist the FBI in hunting serial killers. But little does Will know, Hannibal’s real identity has yet to be revealed.

[IMDb rating : 8.5/10]
[Awards : - ]
[Production Co : Dino De Laurentiis Company, Doheny Productions Inc.]
[IMDb link : http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2243973]

EPISODE 1: APERITIF
Synopsis

When the FBI takes on a case of disappearing college girls, Jack Crawford recruits Will Graham, a gifted criminal profiler with a unique view into the psyche of serial killers, to consult. Jack also seeks the help of Dr. Hannibal Lecter, a brilliant psychiatrist, who, unbeknownst to him, is not only one of the most successful serial killers of all time, but also a cannibal. After a copycat strikes, Will and Hannibal join forces to track down the culprit.

[Quality : HDTV 720p]
[File Size : 300 MB]
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EPISODE 2: AMUSE-BOUCHE
Synopsis

Will Graham, now an official special investigator with the FBI, helps Jack Crawford and the BAU unit search for a murderer who buries his victims alive to grow mushrooms. In their therapy sessions, Hannibal begins to gain Will’s trust as they bond over responsibility for Abigail, and helps Will open up about his true feelings about killing Hobbs. Meanwhile, Freddie Lounds snoops around the BAU’s investigation.

[Quality : HDTV 720p]
[File Size : 275 MB]
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EPISODE 3: POTAGE
Synopsis

Jack theorizes that Abigail may have aided her father ,Garret Jacob Hobbs in his serial killings. Against Dr. Alana Bloom’s advice ,but at Hannibal’s behest, Abigail is escorted back to Minnesota, where she discovers much violent hostilityagainst her and her family. Things go from bad to worse when a copycat killer murders a friend of Abigail. Hannibal suggests they hide the body to protect Abigail – but secrets come at a cost.

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[File Size : 300 MB]
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EPISODE 5: COQUILLES
Synopsis

Will’s job begins to take a toll as he and Jack search for a killer who maims his victims to resemble angels.

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[File Size : 300 MB]
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EPISODE 6: ENTREE
Synopsis

Jack & Alana are contacted by a former colleague, Dr. Chilton, who believes he has The Chesapeake Ripper in custody, but then one of his patients commits a murder that matches The Ripper’s profile. The team determines the Ripper was a surgeon and is still at large when Jack’s former protégé Miriam becomes the next victim. Jack copes with her loss and the prospect of losing his wife by opening-up to Hannibal..

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[File Size : 300 MB]
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Kamis, 24 Oktober 2013

Review: ‘Dead Man’s Burden’

“Dead Man’s Burden” opens with hoof-prints and gunshots; we’re immediately tossed into the deadly and dusty world of the post-Civil War American West. Martha (actor Clare Bowen, a dead ringer for Jennifer Lawrence) holds a steady rifle, a frontierswoman ready for anything and everything, her intrepid husband Heck (David Call) by her side. The very next scene features even more in the way of gunplay, as Wade McCurry (Barlow Jacobs) finds himself in the cross-hairs of two brothers who feel he was on the wrong side of the war. These are the types of scenes “Dead Man’s Burden” will feature throughout, long stretches of slowness followed by an impasse, punctuated by violent outbursts. The film doesn’t come into focus contextually until the closing moments, but as the bullets fly the rhythm is established right from the outset.

As to that focus, therein lies one of the issues with “Dead Man’s Burden”. The first 30 minutes or so of the film are spent pondering, “Now what is this guy’s problem?” Much as with iconic show “The Wire,” you’re thrown into the deep end, though it worked much better on the gritty streets of Baltimore than it does the farmland of Texas. If one is going to attempt a narrative that’s unburdened by exposition (at least initially) then the emphasis must be placed on the character development, and “Dead Man’s Burden” features characters that are all out of “Western Genre 101? central casting. It ends up being a rather straightforward tale, only with artificial constraints placed on the momentum of the story. If you were going to point to a slight stumble, this is the point where you’d hang your hat (pardner). Yes, I fully apologize for the prior pun.

Luckily, there is much more good than bad to be found. Lovely shots are a mainstay of “Dead Man’s Burden,” with newly minted writer-director Jared Moshe showing an aptitude for composition and light. The acting is also subtle and well executed, even though the characters aren’t given much to do, they honor the material through great performances. It wouldn’t be a shock if a few “name” actors were mined from the ranks of “Dead Man’s Burden’s” younger cast. The logic also works once the exposition is tackled, there aren’t logical problems or anything of the sort, as the more pressing issue is pacing.

“Dead Man’s Burden” rests on the sturdy footing of most Westerns, there’s the man from nowhere (Wade) trying to solve a mystery, all while his sister Martha pines for a better life. Heck the husband stands by his woman, come what may, and there’s a surly old gentleman with a vested interest in justice. Finally, there’s the huckster land baron, looking to acquire the McCurry farm for the vast natural resources it possesses, and of course on the cheap. It’s not particularly world-changing fare, but most of the innovative Western films of the past decade just so happen to not actually be Westerns (“Serenity” “Inglourious Basterds”), so it’s hard to fault one that is trying so hard to be authentic. “Dead Man’s Burden” is steeped in the proud tradition of “Tombstone” and “A Fistful of Dollars,” or “3:10 to Yuma” or “Appaloosa” if you’re pining for more modern examples.

Would I watch “Dead Man’s Burden” again? I would not. Is it a well-made film? It is indeed. Ponderous but lovely, simple but elegant, “Dead Man’s Burden” is certainly a film that will appeal to fans of the genre. As for everyone else? Well, I don’t think they’d seek out the title in the first place, and so this is a clear case of a film aiming for and hitting its intended target. Any cowpoke could do far worse.

SCORE: 7.0 / 10

Categories: Reviews

Tags: Clare Bowen, David Call, Dead Man's Burden, Review, Western

Rabu, 23 Oktober 2013

THE TOWER (2012)

Tanggal Rilis : 11 January 2013 (USA)
Jenis Film : Action | Drama
Diperankan Oleh : Mina Cho, Sang-kyung Kim, Sul Kyung-gu

Ringkasan Cerita THE TOWER (2012) :

On Christmas Eve at Tower Sky, an ultra-luxurious building complex, a White Christmas party is held to dazzle its equally high-end tenants and VIP guests. Dae-ho, the manager of the building and single father, is forced to cancel plans with his daughter Hana to work the event. His Christmas is saved when Yoon-hee, the food mall manager with a secret crush on Dae-ho, offers to babysit Hana during the party.

Meanwhile, Young-ki the legendary fire chief of Yoido Station has finally promised his first holiday date night to his long suffering wife. The party is in full swing with the spectacular sight of two helicopters flying overhead just to spray snow on the partygoers and make everything perfect. When unthinkable disaster strikes, Dae-ho and Young-ki must summon all their strength and courage to save the lives of thousands but at what cost to themselves and their loved ones?

[IMDb rating : 6.0/10]
[Awards : - ]
[Production Co : CJ Entertainment]
[IMDb link : http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2554270]

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[File Size : 725 MB]
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Senin, 21 Oktober 2013

Review: ‘The Fifth Season’

An uneasy cousin to both “The White Ribbon” and “The Wicker Man,” Peter Brosens and Jessica Woodworth’s “The Fifth Season” paints a dryly absurd and gradually creepy portrait of how the balance between man and nature might quietly go awry.

In a nameless Belgian village, we watch as the townsfolk go about assembling everything they need to celebrate the end of winter, an occasion meant to culminate in the lighting of a giant bonfire. However, the fire refuses to catch this year, and the villagers slowly find themselves coping with the consequences of a spring inexplicably kept at bay. Roosters stop singing. Crops fail to grow. Cows refuse to give milk, bees quit making honey, and the starving, scared farming community begins to unravel as a result.

Brosens and Woodworth (“Altiplano”) remain spare with the hows and whys of their dark fable. When government forces come to quarantine the livestock, they offer no explanation, and the rare out-of-town visitor can only confirm that the desperation is indeed widespread. The writer-directors instead linger on the surreal consequences of such a strange event: giant bodies bob along the horizon, wasted milk cascades down a rock wall, a tractor circles an empty field. Villagers stock their pantries with jars of insects in order to feed their families; young romance curdles into something more vicious; single parenting becomes an even heavier burden to bear; and the meat on pets’ bones finally becomes too tempting to ignore.

The camera lurks on the harsh dilemmas unfolding across this perpetually wintery, increasingly monochromatic landscape, either panning slowly to or holding still on the next bleak circumstance. When bartering and rationing give way to thievery and fanaticism, actions begin to speak louder than words, and “Season” becomes an increasingly eerie glimpse into the bravery — or desperation — that it takes to leave the old ways behind, and how new rituals may be no less irrational than those which came before. We’re only invited to know a handful of the town’s citizens intimately, but each presents a uniquely haunting possibility as to how such a scenario would proceed to deteriorate common social decency in simple and stark ways.

To that end, the penultimate shot exquisitely encapsulates the film’s overriding duality between the human beast and Nature Itself before the actual final frames proceed to muddy the themes. Barring that odd touch, this is a deliberately paced, perfectly captured nightmare.

SCORE: 8.2 / 10

“The Fifth Season” is currently awaiting U.S. distribution.

Categories: Reviews

Tags: Aurelia poirier, Django schrevens, Gill vancompernolle, Jessica woodworth, La cinquieme saison, Movie review, Peter brosens, Sam louwyck, South by southwest, SXSW, Sxsw 2013, The fifth season, William goss

Minggu, 20 Oktober 2013

PARKER (2013)

Tanggal Rilis : 25 January 2013 (USA)
Jenis Film : Action | Crime | Thriller
Diperankan Oleh : Jason Statham, Jennifer Lopez, Michael Chiklis

Ringkasan Cerita PARKER (2013) :

Parker is a thief who has an unusual code. He doesn’t steal from the poor and hurt innocent people. He is asked to join 4 other guys one of whom is related to a known mobster. They pull off the job flawlessly and Parker wants to part ways with them. But because he refused to join them for another job they try to kill him. They dispose of his body but someone finds him and he is still alive and takes him to the hospital.

After recovering he sets out to get back at the ones who tried to kill him, another one of his codes. He learns where they are and poses as a wealthy Texan looking to buy a house. So he hires a Realtor, Leslie Rogers to show him around. He is actually trying to find out where they’re holed up. And when he finds it, he sets out on his plan to get them. But when they learn he is alive, they contact the mobster to take care of him. So he sends a killer to take care of him.

[IMDb rating : 6.3/10]
[Awards : - ]
[Production Co : Incentive Filmed Entertainment]
[IMDb link : http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1904996]

[Quality : BRRip 720p]
[File Size : 725 MB]
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Sabtu, 19 Oktober 2013

Your Daily Short: ‘After Rain’

Welcome to Your Daily Short, a new feature on Film.com that will highlight and stream a short film at high noon. Every weekday. Every week.

TODAY’S SHORT: “After Rain” (Péter Mészáros) 2002

RUNNING TIME: 3:45

Why You Should Watch It: A leaf floating in still water. A man in a doorframe. A woman riding her bicycle, falling, and then getting to her feet. A Palme d’or for Best Short Film at the 2002 Cannes Film Festival. It might not seem to add up, especially because – upon first blush – “After Rain” almost plays like a parody of student filmmaking (that mournful violin score kinda puts things over the top). And yet, watching the film for a second time (highly encouraged, by the way) reveals that this deceptively innocuous portrait of an uncertain domestic situation is a masterclass in semiotics, writer / director Péter Mészáros carefully parceling out information so as to create a certain infinity of potential meaning with a poverty of direct action. Nothing is certain, as the chronology, threats, and signifiers are all confused until all we know is that there is an irreconcilable gulf between what we see and what we know.

Watch the previous Daily Short: “A MOVIE”

Do you have a favorite short film that you would like us to feature as Your Daily Short? Whether it’s something you love, something you made, or both, send it along to Filmdotcomshorts@Gmail.com and you might see it on the site!

Categories: Columns

Tags: After Rain, Cannes, Short Film, Your Daily Short

Kamis, 17 Oktober 2013

Reality Bites: The Fiction of Documentary Filmmaking’s New Golden Age

There’s been a recent revival of, if not documentary filmmaking, at least film writing about documentaries. Before leaving the A.V. Club, critic Scott Tobias made the (righteous) argument that documentaries have to be just as formally sharp as the most skilled narratives to merit serious discussion rather than getting rubber-stamped approval simply by offering up informative talking points. That premise differed markedly from two triumphal pieces on the allegedly rising commercial and critical status of the documentary. First, David Edelstein enthused that the form had become “incredibly sexy”; following his lead, Tom Shone said that “the recent renaissance of documentary film-making is a direct antibody response to the superhero steroids being pumped through multiplexes every weekend.”

You might remember a similar wave of trend pieces about ten years ago. Then, the success of seven titles — 2002's “Bowling For Columbine,” 2003's “Spellbound” and “Winged Migration,” 2004's “Super Size Me” and “Fahrenheit 9/11,” 2005's “March of the Penguins” and “Mad Hot Ballroom” — had entertainment writers cranking out pieces on how the documentary, after years of critical/commercial marginalization, was here to stay and take its rightful place alongside narrative films on the box-office charts. That optimism was a short-lived reiteration of equally gung-ho sentiments from the mid-’90s, when there was another much-noted (albeit lower-grossing) wave of documentaries, led by “Crumb,” “When We Were Kings” and the perpetually-revered “Hoop Dreams.”

The arguments made by Shone and Edelstein go back even further in time. Intentionally or not, both directly echo Pauline Kael, who concluded her 1969 essay “Trash, Art, And the Movies” by saying that “now, for example, I really want documentaries. [...] I am desperate to know something, desperate for facts, for information, for faces of non-actors and for knowledge of how people live—for revelations, not for the little bits of show-business detail worked up for us by show-business minds who got them from the same movies we’re tired of.” Kael’s “I” is Shone’s public, but the idea in both cases is effectively the same: reality (however tenuously defined) is craved when Hollywood’s fantasies seem increasingly threadbare and unrewarding. Likewise, when Edelstein says the word “documentary” “carries an implicit threat: ‘Time for class, children,’” he’s following Kael’s lead when she observed that as kids, “there are categories of films we don’t like — documentaries generally (they’re too much like education).”

I’d argue (politely!) that both Shone and Edelstein are wrong about the documentary’s rising status and what the public generally wants from them, and that the reasons they’re wrong are germane to why mainstream discussion about the “documentary” form is wrong and unhelpful. The term “documentary” is increasingly untenable, seeing as it’s come to have connotations untampered reality: “non-fiction film” is more to the mark, implying a basis in at least some degree of unconstructed/unmediated footage without firm quotas on the ratio of truth to fiction. That said, Edelstein’s article includes a plausible breakdown of the documentary into 17 different sub-genres. Some seem unquestionable (“Ken Burns [...] Photos, archival footage, talking heads”), others tenuous (“Arty/Collage”?), but it’s a reasonably thorough stab at current taxonomy, with room for hybrids and undefinable outliers.

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Now let’s take a look at the movies dating back over the last decade that could (charitably) be called “non-fiction” which actually cracked the domestic top 100 for each year:

2012: “2016: Obama’s America” (#95 — one slot below “Monster’s Inc. 3D”)
2011: “Justin Bieber: Never Say Never” (#50)
2010: “Jackass 3-D” (#23); “Hubble 3D” (#82)
2009: “Michael Jackson’s This Is It” (#46); “Bruno” (#55); “Earth” (#88); “Under The Sea 3D” (#92)
2008: “Hannah Montana/Miley Cyrus: Best of Both Worlds Concert Tour” (#48)
2007: “Sea Monsters: A Prehistoric Adventure (IMAX)” (#100)
2006: “Borat” (#16); “Jackass: Number Two” (#33);
2005: “March Of The Penguins” (#27)
2004: “Fahrenheit 9/11? (#17)
2003: none (!)
2002: “Space Station 3D (IMAX)” (#30); “The Crocodile Hunter: Collision Course” (#92)

None of these have very much to do with “reality” in the sense of “look, learn and challenge your reality.” “Borat” and the “Jackass” films are borderline “documentaries” (they record basically unfaked realities provoked into existence, so I’m including them), while “Fahrenheit 9/11? and 2016: “Obama’s America” are political polemics with built-in, pre-ordained audiences. That leaves us with IMAX spectacles, cute animals/kids, political self-righteousness, and close-ups of celebrities and musicians on stage and “behind the scenes.” These movies are hardly representatives of tough, unvarnished reality, and their narrative approaches are likewise comfortingly familiar.

Box Office Mojo’s list of the highest-grossing documentaries since 1980 excludes IMAX, concert movies and reality TV shows (though it oddly includes “hybrids” like Bieber’s “Never Say Never”), an indication of the term’s connotational slipperiness. Examining the top 20, most entries are political preaching to the choir, concert movies that snuck in anyway (Bieber, “Katy Perry: Pieces Of Me” and “Madonna: Truth Or Dare”) or nature docs. Those aside, we’re left with “Super Size Me” (which managed to jump-start a public health trend rather than latching onto a built-in, food-worried audience) and “Hoop Dreams,” the only classical verite doc in the upper commercial bracket. Things get more interesting as you travel down the list, but the overall balance is clearly in favor of basic pleasures and low on “reality.”

One reason historical or issues docs might be excluded here as a popular genre (except, again, for those with a built-in political audience) is that didactic streak Kael and Edelstein cite, which prompts the recollection of stultifying classroom hours staring at indifferently paced assemblages of still photos and droning voice-overs. For many casual viewers, this’ll be their only association with the genre. Such films are overtly intended to inform, insisting their content precludes any jazziness in approach; their virtue is, precisely, their truth-value, and nothing else. It’s clear viewers don’t feel tugged towards these titles when they exit the classroom and acquire box office purchasing power.

That brings us back to Tobias’ piece. Sticking to movies that actually got American distribution, however token, I can list quite a few as beautifully made as they were commercially marginal: e.g. ”Only The Young,” a deceptively blissed-out look at Christian Cali skater teens and “Whores’ Glory,” a horrific/gorgeously shot triptych on prostitution around the world. Both were scantily reviewed, and both sound quite awful in synoptic form; visual surprises lurk in every shot, but not in outline. Neither critics nor the public are used to talking about documentaries as beautiful/hypnotic/etc., leaving such titles in an awkward lurch. It’s foolish optimism to think hyper-formalist documentaries (where is where really interesting things are occurring now) will have any more commercial success than their strictly fictional components any time soon; right now they don’t even get that. Positing that information and reality are the documentary’s biggest selling points isn’t an argument for the genre: it’s an evaluative checklist ignoring developments in the field, doing both the genre and box-office prognostication an equally big disservice.

Categories: Features

Tags: Documentaries, Jackass, Justin bieber, Op-ed, Searching for sugar man

Rabu, 16 Oktober 2013

Twitter Fights Back Against the Racist Reactions to a Black Human Torch

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Yesterday, the folks over at The Wrap revealed that director Josh Trank is considering the possibility of casting his “Chronicle” star Michael B. Jordan in the role of comic book superhero Johnny Storm — aka The Human Torch — in the upcoming relaunch of “The Fantastic Four,” which is scheduled to hit theaters in the summer of 2015.

Needless to say, fan reaction to this idea has been mixed, falling somewhere between “that’s cool” and “OMG IT’S ARMAGEDDON!!!!” on the freak out scale. The “problem” some fans see with the casting news? Jordan happens to be African-American, while Johnny Storm traditionally is not.

Now, this doesn’t really seem like that big a deal to us. Jordan is already one of the most highly respected actors of his generation, not only landing a major smash in “Chronicle” but also earning rave reviews for his work on the legendary HBO series “The Wire” as well as the breakout Sundance hit “Fruitvale Station.” And if there’s one thing that Marvel’s superhero movies have proven over the past five years, it’s that the quality of the actor is even more important than the quality of the CGI. Getting top talent is trumps all.

At least, to some people. To others… well, maybe not so much.

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One thing that’s interesting about “The CheekyBrit’s” complaint is that it’s framed in terms of Jordan’s age. As it happens, Jordan is actually 23. More to the point, however, is the fact that in the comics, Johnny Storm was 16 when he became the Human Torch. A literally hot-headed teenager with super powers was the entire point of the character. So that argument seems a bit misguided to say the least.

Other protesters, however, just cut right to the chase when voicing their displeasure.

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Honestly, we’re just glad we finally found out who poached the handle “BalloonMerchant” from us. That’s been bugging us for awhile.

But not, apparently, as much as the idea of a black Human Torch is bugging these guys. On one level, it’s kind of understandable only in the sense that comic fans are notoriously touchy about Hollywood screwing around with their beloved characters. Heck, there was a massive outcry when Jack Nicholson was cast as The Joker in Tim Burton’s 1989 version of “Batman” and he turned out to be the best part of the film. So fanboys definitely have a history of histrionics.

This, on the other hand, does feel a bit different, not in the least because, seriously, does anyone really feel that passionately about the Human Torch?

Luckily, there were other Twitter users on hand to put things back into perspective.

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From where we’re sitting, both “artboiled” and “FreakishNerd” cut right to the heart of the question. The goal of any film, superhero or not, is to cast strong actors in well rounded roles. If you do those two things well, the rest of the movie will pretty much take care of itself. Does it matter that this new Human torch may be black? Well, it only matters insofar as Jordan’s performance makes it matter.

And frankly, “The Fantastic Four” has much bigger hurdles to face, such as the fact that screenwriter Seth Grahame-Smith hasn’t exactly been setting the world on fire himself recently, as “ZacharyWhitten” so eloquently pointed out.

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And for fans still clutching their pearls over the fact that the Human Torch might end up being portrayed by an African-American actor, we offer up these two final facts. Firstly, Johnny Storm only exists because the original Human Torch, who was an android named Jim Hammond, was completely revamped and reconceptualized to make him more appealing to modern audiences. And secondly, the “Fantastic Four” cartoon from the 1970's thought so highly of Johnny Storm that he was left out of the show entirely, replaced by the epically stupid HERBIE the Robot.

So the idea that Johnny Storm as Human Torch is some kind of inviolate trust that can never be changed? Yeah. Right.

Keep on fighting, Twitter.

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Categories: News

Tags: Chronicle, Fantastic four, Josh trank, Matthew vaughn, Michael b. jordan

Senin, 14 Oktober 2013

Review: ‘Greetings From Tim Buckley’

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“Wow, you look just like him…” Jeff Buckley is used to getting the comparison. The resemblance between himself and folk-rocker father Tim has been more of a constant in his life than Dad himself, and to be greeted with such a familiar observation at a 1991 tribute concert in Brooklyn was implicitly part and parcel with agreeing to attend. Of course, if Jeff (Penn Badgley) didn’t really want to be there, he wouldn’t have flown out from L.A. to participate; then again, if Tim (Ben Rosenfield) had really wanted to be there for his growing son, he might not have left California for the girls and glory of NYC back in 1966.

“Greetings from Tim Buckley” alternates between the two timelines, as young Jeff and Tim both came to grips with their evident talents before meeting equally untimely ends, all the while hardly knowing one another. Eschewing the traditional biopic formula, director/co-writer Daniel Algrant (“People I Know”) doesn’t try to capture the whole of either man’s life, simply a week each wherein the inherent similarities and inexorable divide between the two were most potently demonstrated.

This running dichotomy does little to alleviate the fact that “Greetings” is clearly Badgley’s film, and while Rosenfield is a fair ringer for the real Tim Buckley, his scenes are captured in that familiar ‘60s rock haze of so many other movies, volleying between private acts of infidelity and public displays of sensitivity. When left uninterrupted, the ‘90s narrative does better to juxtapose the adoration of Tim by strangers against the absence still felt by Jeff, and even when our protagonist falls for an invented love interest in the form of Imogen Poots’ darling intern, they’re charming enough together to make their scenes a more welcome detour from the concert prep than the simplistic contrasts drawn between Tim’s past and Jeff’s present.

The most compelling reason for remaining with the ‘90s portion of the story is Badgley himself. A “Gossip Girl” regular, the young actor finally gets to show some dramatic and vocal chops here, convincingly conflicted as the begrudging embodiment of a legacy left behind by a father he hardly knew and as a potential talent in his own right. (A showboating bit of business in the middle of a record store is a welcome, wry pre-concert show-stopper of sorts.) The concert may have seen the reluctant birth of a second-generation rock star, but this movie, if nothing else, is a similarly suitable showcase for its own leading man.

SCORE: 7.4 / 10

“Greetings From Tim Buckley” is now playing in limited release, and is available on VOD and iTunes.

Categories: Reviews

Tags: Biopic, Greetings from Tim Buckley, Jeff Buckley, Penn badgley, Review, Tim Buckley, Will goss

Minggu, 13 Oktober 2013

Irony Man: Why Action Scenes Are Hurting Superhero Movies

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The idea that you have to sit through mediocre “character development” to get to the combat fireworks is common to action films, but the first two “Iron Man”s inverted the genre’s traditional appeal: viewers slogged through unexceptional set-pieces to watch Downey be a smart-ass, enabled by capable actors on the same comic page. That was a semi-happy accident, a result of the movies moving into production without a locked script, as multiple actors confirmed; the resulting improv sessions wore their spontaneity transparently. The action sequences had to be figured out before-hand — CGI takes time — but they’re the least memorable components of the first two installments.

This method of construction isn’t unfamiliar: when Jackie Chan made “Police Story” in 1985, he conceived his desired martial arts sequences first, then had the screenwriter come up with a framework that could plausibly get him from one to another. Same process, different outcome: in the “Iron Man”‘s, you came for the comedy and put up with the action filler. With the exception of Jeff Bridges strapping on his gigantic-robot-villain suit at the end of the first film and Mickey Rourke causing racetrack havoc at the start of the second, it’s hard for me to remember any significant mayhem from the first two installments; the showdowns basically look like outtakes from “The Rocketeer.”

That’s no longer the case in “Iron Man 3,” whose plot that functions in ways that a screenwriting teacher would approve: there’s a prologue establishing (“planting”) characters that’ll re-emerge as villains, a first act establishing Tony “Iron Man” Stark (Robert Downey Jr.) is suffering from post-”Avengers” anxiety attacks (a challenge to be overcome, though it’s forgotten halfway through), and a midway plot twist that simultaneously changes everything you thought about the villain while still keeping the movie on course towards an orgy of third-act CGI gasoline explosions and neatly resolved plot arcs.

Also check out: Our review of “Iron Man 3?

This isn’t to say that the first two films are an unqualified triumph (or that this new installment is suffocatingly mapped-out), but their comic sequences are surprisingly loose and delightful for overbudgeted superhero movies. Christian Bale’s Batman has angst, Tobey Maguire’s Spider-Man has some really serious anxiety issues (so his tentative delivery suggests), but Robert Downey Jr.’s topspin on every piece of dialogue is predictable without lapsing into diminishing returns. The memory I hold onto from “Iron Man 2? is Downey and co-star Don Cheadle killing time until the ultra-big final showdown by cracking wise about who’s the big gun (Downey: “You have a big gun. You are not ‘the big gun.’”) This isn’t exactly Howard Hawks, but it’s closer to “Hatari!” than anything in recent tentpole history: narrative in the back, party up front.

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It’s worth noting that this unintentional jaggedness went beyond production or elements director Jon Favreau could control. Mickey Rourke, for example, said that his “Iron Man 2? villain was conspicuously absent from much of the movie in which he’s ostensibly a major threat because “Favreau didn’t call the shots” and Marvel Comics cut his part. There’s no reason not to believe Rourke, since big summer blockbusters tend to work on a committee-times-ten basis. Accidental messiness is a welcome by-product of production turmoil, at least if you’re one of the perverse few who (like me) enjoys “Spider-Man 3,” in which Sam Raimi channelled his frustration with a top-heavy third installment spiraling out of control by shooting bizarro musical numbers or James Franco painting, resulting in an incoherent work with endearingly inexplicably moments attributable only to eccentric humanity.

This weirdness is a double-edged sword. “Spider-Man 3? and “Iron Man 2? are frustrated works that could have, at one time, hung together as coherent dramas, but instead come off as a series of comic tangents interrupted by obligatory, grudgingly executed action sequences. “Iron Man 2? went so poorly that Favreau simply didn’t return for another directorial round, but he returns to reprise his role as Tony Stark’s former bodyguard Happy Hogan. The big joke here is that Happy’s now in charge of security at Stark Industries, and he’s constantly worried about threats to everyone’s safety. The human element “in human resources is our biggest weakness,” he says, and he’s not joking, a statement that could double as the studio’s own nightmares about the franchise: Downey’s too distinctive a performer to replace (though Cheadle replaced Terrence Howard without too many complaints), but apparently Favreau can be swapped out no problem.

Also check out: Changing Suits: How “Iron Man 3? finally fixes superhero movies.

[People who are way too worried about SPOILERS for things that happen in the first 20 minutes may want to check out at this point.] Happy’s subsequently seriously injured in an explosion and rendered catatonic for the bulk of the narrative — as neat an in-joke as any about being forced to watch someone else take control of the franchise he helped build. (Tony’s nightmares about New York work as a similar in-joke, in which the centerpiece of one franchise is tormented by memories of anchoring a totally different blockbuster.) Where former actor Favreau was good with helping organize riffing and keeping a potentially unwieldy production on track, new co-writer/director Shane Black melds the particular sense of humor he established himself with in “Lethal Weapon” and “The Last Boy Scout” with a firm sense of structural cause-and-effect.

The trade-off is that the film, eventually, has to shut up and explode: the now-planned-out riffing of the first half ceases as the generic action setpieces take over. (The first two are memorable, the rest increasingly watery; the finale’s really close to that of the recent “A-Team” movie, which isn’t a good thing.) These are the breaks: you can have unplanned human spontaneity without memorable action sequences, or you can have too many of the latter and too little of the former.

Categories: Features

Tags: Iron Man 3, Jon favreau, Marvel, Op-ed, Robert downey jr., Superhero Movies, Vadim Rizov

Sabtu, 12 Oktober 2013

Director’s Cut: Shane Black and Kevin Feige on Customizing ‘Iron Man 3′

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Phase Two of Marvel’s movie universe kicks off on May 3 when “Iron Man 3” rockets into theaters. This time we find Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr.), who is still traumatized by his near-death experience in “The Avengers,” forced to face a more personal threat when his Malibu mansion is destroyed and he embarks on a quest to find those responsible. As he fights his way back after his world literally crumbles around him, Tony is forced to consider if the man makes the suit or the suit makes the man.

We sat down with Marvel president and “Iron Man 3? producer Kevin Feige and “Iron Man 3? director-writer Shane Black to discuss what sets this “Iron Man” apart from the previous films, which Marvel character Feige feels most protective of, and if moviegoers can glean any information about “The Avengers 2? from the post-credits scenes like the one in “Iron Man 3.”

Read our review of “Iron Man 3? here.

Robert DeSalvo: Kevin, for Iron Man’s third stand-alone movie, what specifically did you want to do differently from the other “Iron Man” films?

KEVIN FEIGE: Well, the most important thing was to make a good part three. The curse of the threequel is something that people write a lot about, and I didn’t want to fall prey to that. One way to try to not fall prey to that was do something different and not rely on making things bigger, bigger, bigger. Although, ironically, this has some of the biggest action set pieces in any of our movies. But, knowing that it would come a year after “The Avengers,” we wanted to focus on Tony again. What we found in “Iron Man” and less so in “Iron Man 2? was that audiences really respond to Tony—as brash and egotistical as he is. When he’s knocked down a peg and he’s backed into a corner, they like watching him get out of it. With one of our first conversations with Shane, we said we want to metaphorically put him back into that cave and convoy from the first one. People see in the trailer the house coming down, and that is the start of a journey that I hope is very unique and unexpected for a superhero.

RD: Shane, your script is the best “Iron Man” yet—there is a lot of action, but there are great comic moments. Did your work on the first two “Lethal Weapon” movies influence any of the interactions in “Iron Man 3?? There is a similar vibe at times.

SHANE BLACK: There is a similar vibe and a similar pace—the notion of checking in with people and seeing as their lives are progressing as things start circling around them and the net gets tighter and tighter until they are in over their heads. There is tossing in of different characters like the ["Lethal Weapon"] Joe Pesci character… in this case we have the little boy. There are escalating set pieces until they are in the most desperate situation and have to pull out all the stops. So, yeah, the shape of it is not that dissimilar, but having this kind of a canvas to paint on with this much spectacle was pretty neat.

RD: Kevin, was Jon Favreau at all interested in directing this installment or did he only want to reprise his role as Happy Hogan?

KF: Early on, it was clear that he was going to go do other things right after “Iron Man 2? came out. That being said, he’s an executive producer on the movie, “Avengers” and the upcoming “Avengers 2.” He wanted to stay in the family and help. It was important to all of us that Happy be the catalyst that sends Tony on this mission. It’s certainly the best Happy performance and storyline.

RD: Shane, abduction is a recurring theme in a lot of your movies. Is there something you want to tell us?

SB: [Laughs] I think I try to stay away from it as much as possible. There was a version of the script where Pepper went along knowingly or unwittingly with these guys and was sort of just traveling with the bad guys at some point. Eventually, it came down to the simplicity that she is going to become subdued, so it became this abduction plot. We saw that coming—the damsel-in-distress potential—so we had to take the curse off. She doesn’t stay captive for very long.

RD: Kevin, out of all the great Marvel characters in all the big Marvel movies that you’ve produced, do you have a character that you love most and feel most protective towards?

KF: Well, I like to think that I’m protective of all of them because the truth is that when we got the financing to become our own studio—I was excited that we had Iron Man, Thor, Hulk, Captain America, Hawkeye and Black Widow—I said, “I can’t believe this. This is great.” Then the “L.A. Times” said that we had the B-team and that Marvel was scraping the bottom of the barrel. I thought, these are all A-list—they just don’t know it yet. The fact that “Iron Man” is arguably bigger than them makes me pleased and even more protective of all of them, but certainly “Iron Man” kicked it all off. “Iron Man” was the first movie we had the final say on—from the choice of Favreau to the choice of Downey and playing with real life like convoy attacks in Afghanistan—it was sort of all of our instincts wrapped into one movie. So I would say “Iron Man” is the most representative of the birth of our studio.

RD: Shane, Sir Ben Kingsley steals scenes in “Iron Man 3.” Did you have more laughs writing his dialogue or the banter between Tony Stark and the young boy?

SB: Those were all fun. Tony Stark and the boy were fun days because Robert and the kid had a chance to bond and you could really see it happen. Sir Ben was probably my favorite actor to have met and work with just because I’ve never met a more competent, effective and yet gracious and absolutely humble man. You hear stories about these actors that come in and have all these demands. From the beginning, this guy was just everything about the elegant, artful British actor.

KF: Sir Ben is an amazing human being. Often times when actors sign up for our movies they don’t read the scripts because either we’re being overly cautious and security-minded or the script hasn’t been written yet. I was in London at a press junket for “Avengers” and Sir Ben had signed up to do the movie. It occurred to me that he didn’t know what he was doing in the movie, so I went out to visit him and pitched him what the storyline was. To his credit, he got it instantly. He said, “Tell Shane that I get it completely and I’m completely on board,” including what to say and not say in interviews. He just overdelivered.

RD: Warner Bros. yanked “Gangster Squad” out of theaters and refilmed a theater scene because of the Colorado theater shootings. “Iron Man 3? involves terrorist bombings. Did you consider changing anything given recent events in Boston?

KF: I was never privy to any of those conversations if they were had. Our first thought was just Boston and is everyone OK. My wife and I were both born in Boston, I have family in Boston, so that’s all we were thinking about. The truth is that what happens in “Iron Man 3? is a very different thing.

SB: There were explosions and the word “terrorist,” but that’s about the sum of it in “Iron Man 3.” As opposed to, say, a shooting in a movie theater.

RD: Is there some connecting thread viewers should look for in the post-credits scenes that you will have with all the Marvel Phase Two films leading up to “Avengers 2??

KF: The tags certainly have less pressure as connective tissue because everyone knows the movies are connected now. We were educating the audience as much as anything else in the Phase One films, so I think we’re liberated to allow the tags to be anything if we do them at all. It all depends on when inspiration strikes. I would say that there is an overall arching theme to the movies, but it won’t become apparent until you see “Avengers 2.” I don’t think there is anything obvious in “Iron Man 3? that you can see, but it connects.

Categories: Interviews

Tags: Ben kingsley, Director's cut, Interview, Iron man 2, Iron Man 3, Kevin Feige, Shane Black, The Mandarin

Kamis, 10 Oktober 2013

Video Interview: Olivier Assayas on Sex, Marx and Revolution in ‘Something in the Air’

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“I’ve always believed more in movement than narration.”

With his new film “Something in the Air,” revered French filmmaker Olivier Assayas (“Irma Vep,” “Carlos”) has effectively made his version of “Almost Famous.” A sexy yet sincere reflection on the post-revolutionary times of his youth, Assayas’ film – torn between past and present – is almost certainly among the most entertaining movies he’s ever made, but also one of the most conflicted and layered.

In Film.com’s full review of “Something in the Air,” I described the film as follows:

“The film begins with a floppy teenager named Gilles (Clément Métayer as Assayas’ blank but perceptive proxy) running around the February 9, 1971 demonstration, in which a branch of French maoists were teargassed by the Parisian police force. Originally titled “Après Mai” (or “After May”), “Something in the Air” rages with the orphaned energy that lingered in the aftermath of the May ’68 revolution, introducing us to the kids who were there to devour the crumbs of the counterculture. Gilles’ friends – the most memorable of whom is played by Lola Créton, perhaps the most compulsively watchable ingenue in all contemporary cinema – represent a generation of agitated adolescents so idealistic and impossibly beautiful that their physical presence alone is enough to suggest that this is a personal story told through a political lens, and not the other way around. Like a fire with nothing to burn, they have all the zeal in the world and no cause into which they might channel it.”

It was a hell of time to be young, and it’s obvious from the film that Assayas has plenty more to say on the subject than what he could fit in a single movie. That being said, IFC was kind enough to offer Film.com an exclusive clip from this Sundance Now video interview with the filmmaker, in which he talks about some of the ideas that informed his new work.

“Something in the Air” hits theaters tomorrow.

Categories: Interviews

Tags: Apres Mai, Director, Ifc films, Interview, Olivier Assayas, Something in the Air, Video Interview

Selasa, 08 Oktober 2013

BEAUTIFUL CREATURES (2013)

Tanggal Rilis : 14 February 2013 (USA)
Jenis Film : Drama | Fantasy | Romance
Diperankan Oleh : Alden Ehrenreich, Alice Englert, Viola Davis

Ringkasan Cerita BEAUTIFUL CREATURES (2013) :

Beautiful Creatures is a 2013 American romantic fantasy film based upon the novel of the same name by Kami Garcia and Margaret Stohl. The film was directed by Richard LaGravenese and stars Alden Ehrenreich and Alice Englert. Ethan longs to escape his small Southern town. He meets a mysterious new girl, Lena. Together, they uncover dark secrets about their respective families, their history and their town.

[IMDb rating : 6.1/10]
[Awards : - ]
[Production Co : Alcon Entertainment, Warner Bros. Entertainment]
[IMDb link : http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1559547]

[Quality : BRRip 720p]
[File Size : 750 MB]
[Format : Matroska >> mkv]
[Resolution : 1280x536]
[Source : 720p.BluRay.x264-SPARKS]
[Encoder : nItRo]

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Senin, 07 Oktober 2013

Filminism: ‘Mud,’ and Why It’s Sometimes Okay to Write One-Dimensional Women

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Filminism is a bi-weekly column dedicated to representations of women in cinema. It runs every other Friday.

As other writers have noted, being a feminist and a pop culture critic sometimes requires a bit of mental gymnastics. How can I reconcile enjoying something like “Pain & Gain” unless I write it off as Michael Bay lampooning the American Dream and its ugly baggage (homophobia, sexism, and sizism, just to start with)? As I walked out of the screening, a publicist asked me what I thought. She called me out by name! I was caught! I couldn’t escape! So I blurted out what I thought. “I liked it, but I feel guilty for liking it,” is what I told her, more or less. There was nothing in it that lit a fire under my ass to really engage with it more than that, and it was a relief. Because frankly, if I was actively angry about all the things that make me mad and sad and disgusted in the world, I’d go crazy. I still don’t know how to feel about “Spring Breakers,” except that seeing James Franco fellate a gun makes me blush. (Two guns at once, actually – it’s a rather impressive show of gag reflex control.)

Just as I enjoy video games and consume other so-called “problematic” types of media, I don’t always demand that a movie I love must be a paradigm of, well, whatever utopian vision we’re all striving for. There are plenty of worthy works of art that don’t pass the Bechdel Test, or whose creators were particularly monstrous in their private lives. The artist leaks into his or her work, no doubt, but I’m not giving them a free pass on being a piece of crap just because I take pleasure in their art. Poorly written female characters are the work of lazy writers. Actually, that’s giving some of these writers more credit than they’re due; maybe they’re just emotionally stunted or something, but I don’t know because I’m not Todd Phillips’ therapist.

There are exceptions, though. Occasionally, a film’s point of view requires the sort of female characters that normally irk me as underdeveloped and wispy, but they succeed despite (or in some cases, because of) this. That’s the case with writer/director Jeff Nichols’ newest, and quite excellent movie, “Mud.”

Our young protagonist Ellis (Tye Sheridan) is our eyes and ears in this world where it’s completely normal for a man to live in a boat stuck in a tree. He’s learning about love and women from broken men doing their best to find their own way in a changing world: his reticent fisherman father Senior (Ray McKinnon), his best friend Neckbone’s womanizing uncle Galen (Michael Shannon), and the aforementioned tree-inhabiting Mud (Matthew McConaughey), who is desperately in love with his childhood sweetheart Juniper (Reese Witherspoon).

Senior breaks his silence occasionally, and it’s rarely for anything good. After Ellis witnesses plenty of fighting, Senior relays the information that Ellis’ mom Mary Lee (Sarah Paulson) is going to sell their houseboat and uproot Ellis to a sterile suburb. The girl Ellis has a crush on, May Pearl, holds his hand in the back of a truck and kisses him quickly but shames him in public – as if she’d really be seen with a pipsqueak like him. Juniper is your basic broken woman, beautiful in a bedraggled sort of way and self-defeating to the very end. She and Mud have spent their lives bouncing off of each other, but Ellis is determined to help Mud escape the gangsters and policemen on his trail so he and Juniper can live happily ever after.

Mud is Ellis’ hero, someone so bound and determined to protect the woman that he kills for her. This is the sort of all-consuming love that Ellis yearns for, and what his world sorely lacks; he has no idea just how deeply dysfunctional the love between Juniper and Mud is, and the more he learns, the more disappointed and angered he is by the adults around him.

If you wanted to get all Joseph Campbell about it, you could argue that at one point or another, every adult character takes a turn at being some sort of archetypal figure from myths. For example, the mysterious neighbor played by Sam Shepard, Tom Blankenship, appears as the Hermit, the wise but mysterious person that the Hero with a Thousand Faces becomes after experiencing the outside world. The Hermit returns to his hidey-hole — in this case, a houseboat — only to come out and impart his lessons to those who need it. Mud can be seen as the trickster, an archetype that shows up in belief systems around the world. Nichols plays with variations on the virgin/mother/crone and virgin/whore symbols with the women, flipping them around at different points. Even the names May Pearl, Juniper, and Mary Lee are ripe for interpretation; I mean, May Pearl? How much more maidenly can you get? These other people are mysteries to Ellis, except for Neckbone, and so they’re mysteries to us too.

Nichols is not unfamiliar with excellent female characters, though. Nichols’ 2011 movie “Take Shelter” was one of my top picks for the year, and the character Samantha is a big reason why. Samantha, played by Jessica Chastain, stays strong in the face of her husband’s crumbling mental health; she’s sturdy and interesting, and her crazy husband and hearing-impaired daughter aren’t the most interesting things about her. She has one of the bravest moments in a movie full of aching vulnerability. Nichols knows just what he’s doing.

What are some other movies that have similar problematic elements that work in the movie’s favor, or are otherwise so good that you’re willing to overlook them?

Categories: Columns

Tags: Filminism, Jeff Nichols, Matthew mcconaughey, Mud, Reese witherspoon

Sabtu, 05 Oktober 2013

We ARE Living in a Golden Age of Documentaries, but the Reality Is Hard to See

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This piece is a rebuttal to a Film.com article by Vadim Rizov called “Reality Bites: The Fiction of Documentary Filmmaking’s New Golden Age.”

Everyone is excited about documentaries. David Edelstein went to Miami and fell in love with Twenty Feet from Stardom. Tom Shone was blown away by some huge buys at Sundance, including Alex Gibney’s We Steal Secrets: The Story of Wikileaks and Sarah Polley’s revelatory Stories We Tell. Shone even framed these films against superhero blockbusters, making the argument that “reality” is making a comeback. Edelstein went so far as to call them “sexy.”

But are they? It’s a tough question. Edelstein and Shone have some blind spots, including their assumptions regarding what documentaries actually are. It’s also very easy to get carried away when it comes to heralding the arrival of a new “boom” in cinema. Film.com’s own Vadim Rizov took this euphoria to task in a piece entitled “Reality Bites: The Fiction of Documentary Filmmaking’s New Golden Age,” arguing that non-fiction films still make too little money for there to be any sort of renaissance. It’s a valuable critique of the rough patches in Edelstein and Shone’s optimism, but I’d like to respectfully reframe the entire discussion.

Addressing a supposed documentary boom with box office data misses the point entirely. There is absolutely no doubt that docs continue to be almost entirely excluded from the domestic gross Top 100, and I would be shocked if they penetrated it any time soon. Very few of them get a wide release, and most of them end up playing in just a few theaters in New York and Los Angeles. When Shone positioned docs against the unrealistic “superhero steroids” of the multiple-million-dollar gross, he introduced a red herring to the discussion. Rizov’s mathematical rebuttal is completely solid, but it also tries to answer the wrong question.

We are living through a major upswing in documentary cinema, but it isn’t happening in our multiplexes (and probably never will). Where and how do people watch documentaries? There may only be one doc on last year’s box office 100, but there are nine currently in iTunes’s top 100 rentals list. It’s near-impossible to get good data on Netflix and VOD, but the little evidence we have points to a much better reception for docs via streaming at home than in the theater.

Then there’s television. PBS, HBO and ESPN have put a great deal of time and money into documentary cinema over the last decade, and it’s paid off. ESPN’s 30 for 30 series has become quite the success, and the network has now produced well over the original target-number. The point could be made that these sports pieces are a different kind of doc than those bound for movie theaters, that TV non-fiction cinema has a different quality. Yet HBO Documentary Films and Independent Lens and POV over at PBS show how blurry that line really is. HBO’s newly-announced summer program includes Sundance hit Pussy Riot: A Punk Prayer, while PBS is bringing Detropia, The Invisible War, Last Train Home and even Only the Young. The public may not yet know how to react to “hyper-formalist” flicks like that last one, but a whole bunch of people will get the chance to figure it out on the evening of July 15th on PBS.

But wait, there’s more! Tugg.com has begun to bring smaller films to cities across the country with their Groupon-esque business model. They’ve already arranged sold-out screenings of docs like Free Angela and All Political Prisoners and The United States of Autism. There are also a whole lot more film festivals dedicated exclusively to documentary cinema than there used to be. SilverDocs, True/False, Big Sky, DocNyc and CPH:DOX all got their start within the last ten years. As far as I’m aware neither Tugg nor film festivals are factored into a film’s box office report, but they help documentaries get to audiences nonetheless.

So, does this make it a Golden Age of Documentary? Not yet, but I think it’s become obvious that we’re on the way. It’s easier to make them than it used to be, thanks to the proliferation of digital technology. There are more companies willing to fund them, TV-based or otherwise. The sheer number has gone up: Box Office Mojo has 132 of them on record for 2012, quite a jump from 28 in 2002. There’s even a doc “Oscars” of sorts in the Cinema Eye Honors, which kicked off in 2008.

Frankly, the biggest obstacle to declaring any sort of “Golden Age” has nothing to do with the often thrilling quality of the films themselves. It isn’t audiences either – people are watching documentaries, probably more than they ever have before (we could prove it if VOD providers would release data, but that’s another conversation entirely). The issue is one of perspective, coming from many critics’ odd approach to documentary cinema. First of all, another one of Rizov’s points is absolutely crucial: many of the best movies of the last few years should probably be called “non-fiction” rather than “documentary.” The D-word does seem to imply boredom and “learning,” as opposed to art. We need to get out of that trap.

Even if Edelstein’s taxonomy of documentary is a bit haphazard, the impulse to recognize that non-fiction cinema is a form, rather than a genre, is a huge deal. If the biggest obstacle really is that critics and the public think of all docs as dull and educational, the best way to break through it is to stop talking about them as a unified whole. We need better doc criticism. Scott Tobias is dead on when he says that “for critics, form should matter in documentaries just as it does in features.” Is he also right to complain that we are giving too much credit to bad films with important messages? Probably. But the great films Tobias wants to write about are already out there. We just need to start writing about them as they are, rather than matching them up against a pre-conceived notion of what a documentary should be.

The Golden Age is happening under the rug, and we won’t pull it out with financial analysis. And if we can just go back to talking about the films, rather than the criticism, everyone will be better off.

Categories: Features

Tags: Documentary, Only the Young, Rebuttal, Twenty feet from stardom

Kamis, 03 Oktober 2013

Exclusive Clip: ‘He’s Way More Famous Than You’

If you starred in one of the decade’s great American indies, you’d probably expect the film industry to ask you to stick around for a little while, right? Well, apparently things don’t always shake out that way. In 2005, Noah Baumbach’s low-fi masterpiece “The Squid and the Whale” was the talk of the town, a fixture on year-end top ten lists that re-ignited the director’s career and launched Jesse Eisenberg towards stardom. Hell, it even made The Museum of Natural History seem cool, again. But what ever happened to Halley Feiffer, the girl who played Eisenberg’s girlfriend, Sophie Greenberg? History doesn’t seem to have been kind to her. Despite playing a pivotal role in the film, she’s not even mentioned on the film’s Wikipedia page.

Well, in real life (which I guess is what counts?), Feiffer seems to have done okay for herself, continuing to work in film and tv while also starring in a bunch of Off-Broadway productions. But her new comedy, “He’s Way More Famous Than You,” peeks into the looking glass and imagines a world where things didn’t go quite so well. Playing a role that she co-wrote and kind of lived, the movie finds Feiffer re-imagining herself as a hot mess, a fading indie starlet whose lust for fame is only matched by her need for another drink. An industry satire filled with familiar faces and intensely painful cringe-comedy (aka the best kind of cringe-comedy), “He’s Way More Famous Than You” is a hilarious look at what happens to the Sundance Kid after the credits roll.

Here’s an exclusive clip from the film, includes what might be movie history’s most intense reference to “The Outsiders.”

“He’s Way More Famous Than You” opens in limited release on May 10.

Check out the official synopsis:

When once-up-and-coming indie film starlet Halley Feiffer loses her boyfriend, her agent and her career in one fell swoop she finally realizes that something has got to change…she has to become WAY MORE FAMOUS! Armed with a stolen script and two pitchers of sangria, Halley enlists the help of her brother Ryan and his boyfriend to make a movie, starring herself (of course), and any A-list celebrity she can land. She will stop at nothing, even if it means hurting the only people who truly care about her.

Categories: No Categories

Tags: Exclusive Clip, Halley Feiffer, He's Way More Famous Than You

Rabu, 02 Oktober 2013

Review: ‘The Iceman’

This review was originally published on September 12, 2012 as part of Film.com’s coverage of the 2012 Toronto International Film Festival.

There are really only two stories in the world. The first, the oldest and most common, is your standard hero mythology. You’ll find this technique in works ranging from “Superman” to “The Natural” and the “Lord of the Rings” franchise. The second, a slightly more modern story construct, is the anti-hero myth. Consider “The Dark Knight,” most of the works of Quentin Tarantino and “Boogie Nights” as decent examples of modern anti-hero storytelling. The hero story started, many thousands of years ago, because folks need inspiration. The anti-hero offshoot came about once the world became more complicated, motives less clear, real “heroes” tougher to find.

Strangely, these origin stories end up being fruits from the same tree, utilizing an eerily similar equation. Your hero does great things because she’s great. Easy enough. An anti-hero occasionally does bad things, or is just plain mean-spirited, in the service of a greater good because he or she’s been unjustly wronged. Still, “good” is generally the outcome, with only the methods changing, based upon context. Notable outliers of these twins are stories audiences don’t quite know what to make of, your “Apocalypse Now” and “Leaving Las Vegas” style of movies. These oddballs always strike a discordant note because it’s hard to know where to put them in your memory bank, as they don’t really fit with anything you’ve seen or are emotionally equipped to process. Now then, what if you made a film about a bad person doing bad things for bad reasons where the sum result is bad, and then, right as the audience was disconnecting, screamed out, “Wait, this guy wasn’t all bad!” Only he was. He was very bad, indeed.

Discordance, meet “The Iceman,” a film so wrong-footed it should take Eugene Levy out for a coffee.

The dramatic re-telling of the story of hit man Richard Kuklinski, “The Iceman” brings Michael Shannon to the big screen as a brutal mob enforcer. (You can read about the entire sordid story here if you like spoilers.) The film seeks to offer some sort of “reason” for Kuklinski’s vicious nature, as well as setting up a framework for where his loyalties were truly placed. Michael Shannon is his normal level of great as Kuklinski, and he’s joined in bit parts by Winona Ryder, Ray Liotta and Chris Evans, all of whom acquit themselves well given the material underneath them.

Also Check Out: Stars Take the Red Carpet at the 2012 Toronto Film Festival

At the outset, Kuklinski is just a violent man with an extremely loose version of “right and wrong.” He loves his wife and children, but he lacks the emotional tools needed to realize all his victims likely appreciated their wife and kids as well. He’s your standard psychopath, only bigger, as he towers over his targets at 6’5?, 300lbs.

Can Kuklinski keep working for the mob and maintaining his double life for the sake of his family? What do you make of his innovative way of killing people? A bigger question looms over the entire endeavor, though: Do you care? When presented with a protagonist who is fairly uninteresting, one who violently murders legions of innocents while maintaining a hypocritical facade, can you bring yourself to feel either way about him? The answer, unfortunately for this film, is “Nope.” The enemy of all storytelling is disconnection and boredom, and that’s precisely the hurt locker this one finds itself in.

For when a film doesn’t teach, doesn’t offer hope and presents a bleak vision of humanity coupled with a ham-fisted rationale for the darkness, well, your best bet is to turn your back on that sort of effort. It’s eminently clear that “The Iceman” had little regard for humanity… and it’s just as clear we should have about the same level of interest in his story.

SCORE: 4.5 / 10

Categories: Reviews

Tags: Apocalypse now, Boogie nights, Chris evans, Leaving Las Vegas, Lord of the rings, Michael shannon, Ray Liotta, Review, Superman, The Iceman, The Natural, Toronto International Film Festival, Winona ryder

Selasa, 01 Oktober 2013

Interview: Michael Shannon on ‘The Iceman,’ Boring Romances and Murder

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When one thinks of actor Michael Shannon, the image that comes to mind is not necessarily puppies and fields of daisies. And he’s fine with that.

The burly actor is known for roles in “Take Shelter,” HBO’s “Boardwalk Empire” and other brutal characters. Shannon, who stars in this weekend’s “The Iceman” as real-life serial killer Richard Kuklinski, under contract for the mob and leading a double life that not even his wife knows the depths of, takes parts the he finds challenging and interesting. Things he doesn’t find interesting: Romance. “Who the hell wants to see that?!” he asked.

We sat down with Shannon in New York ahead of the release of “The Iceman,” where the actor ate continuously from a bowl of pistachios and sipped on a glass of red wine while discussing romance, his perfect murder and which of his films you should give a second chance.

Kase Wickman: I find you very intimidating.

Michael Shannon: As you should! No, I’m just kidding. I’m a goofball.

Do people recognize you on the street? Are they scared of you? What do they do?

They usually say, “Hey, I know you! You’re so-and-so in such-and-such! Can I get my picture with you?” Okay! I Do the picture and say, “Have a nice day, buh-bye!” I always say, beyond the initial act of recognizing somebody, the funny thing about it is there’s nothing to talk about. There’s no conversation to be had, it’s literally like tag. it’s like ah, I got ya! I need to let you know that I see you. The only time it irritates me is when people say “I know I know who you are, but I don’t know why, so will you explain to me why I know who you are because it’s really bugging me.”

They’re like, “What were you in!” I say, “A lot of things.” And they’re like, “No, seriously, what’ve you been in?” I say, “Really, I’ve been doing this for over 20 years, I’ve worked on a lot of projects.” And then if they insist, I say I was in “Bad Boys 2,” because that’s honestly probably the movie I’m most known for.

Do people quote lines at you ever?

“I have my rights.” Some people quote that to me, but they don’t do it very often.

In this movie, you play a hitman. Was there anything new for you in that?

I really just went to the source material, which is the interview that Kuklinski did for the America Undercover series they did on HBO, and I got a full unedited copy of the interview, which is like over 20 hours long and I just watched it.

Did you imitate mannerisms? How much of it’s you and how much is modeled specifically on him?

A part of the film that is a direct lift from the interview, it bookends the film, starts it and ends it, that I tried to get exactly the way it was. I tried. I mean, I don’t really even look, despite the makeup and everything, I don’t really look like him, but I tried to get that right. But for most of the rest of the film, I used my imagination. I went off things that he said about himself, but it’s tricky because I don’t think anybody really knows what happened. I don’t think he ever really told anybody what happened. I think he told different people different things. It’s hard to know what to make of a guy who says he killed between 100 and 200 people. I mean, that’s a large difference. It’s like saying, you know, I bat between .300 and .400 in baseball, it’s a big difference. You would know.

What do you think would be the perfect murder?

Well, Kuklinski came up with this Mr. Freezy character. They would explore ways where you could literally walk down the sidewalk past a person and kill them without touching them or them even knowing what happened. You didn’t even have to stop walking. It had a lot to do with the cyanide system. Like what you see in the disco in the movie, when he dances by the guy and sprays it in his face. That’s pretty good. Although that’s the way you wind up getting caught, by trying to buy cyanide off an undercover cop.

I eat cyanide every day for breakfast.

“Princess Bride” style, to build up resistance?

Yeah, exactly.

How do you think you’d kill someone?

Huh. I just can’t imagine killing anybody. That seems like such a horrible thing. I mean, life is so precious, I would not want to be responsible for ending someone’s life, I could never shake that off.

Somewhere down the hall, the publicists are very relieved and they don’t know why.

Yeah. I mean, every once in a while I go off, I have a little temper tantrum or whatever. It’s not like I’m an unemotional person, I mean if I was, I wouldn’t be an actor. Most actors are prone to fits every now and then, but the idea of actually hurting anybody, I couldn’t stomach it.

Your characters are often very violent. Do you have a favorite stage fighting move?

I’ve done a lot of stage combat over the years because I’ve done a lot of plays, and I’ve done a lot of plays that have had combat in them for whatever reason. I’m not trained in martial arts or any sort of, you know, soldier maneuvers or anything. I basically just go on my experience on stage, doing stage combat.

I like the fake punch. I like the punch, fake punch. I mean, my favorite fight I’ve ever done on stage was the end of “Killer Joe.” When we did the play, the fight at the end is very savage. That was my favorite fight sequence ever. It ended with me, like, getting shoved into a refrigerator and all the shelves falling out and him slamming the door on me and crushing my legs and then my sister shoots a shot into the air and everybody freezes and I come out of the fridge, and I’m like, “Sister!” and then she shoots me in the head.

Wow.

It’s an intense play.

Sounds like a light comedy.

It’s what I’m known for.

You’ve definitely got the bad guy thing down pat. Would you ever do something like a rom com?

With you?

Sure.

Yeah! Let’s do it! Who’s gonna write it?

What would it be about?

It would just be about two people having the time of their lives, just enjoying each others’ company, going on long walks in the park, having, you know, brunch together. Just having a nice life! That could be the name of it: “A Nice Life.” But who the hell wants to see that?! That’s my point. Every time someone asks me, “Why do you do this?” I’m like, there has to be something going on. There has to be an event, a conflict, a struggle…something! Catharsis, you know. Ever since the Greeks, that’s what it is. Something hot has to happen. It can’t just be everyone having a good time.

There can be conflict in romance too though.

Yeah, but that’s all, like, ahh, I got her the wrong shoes! She wanted the blue ones, I got her the red ones. Oh well. I mean, there are artfully constructed romantic comedies, but I haven’t seen any recently. The tend to be kind of antique.

What are some good romances, then? What is Michael Shannon’s favorite light fare?

“Philadelphia Story” is the best romantic comedy ever made, in my opinion. Um, maybe something like, you know, “Carnal Knowledge.” That’s a great movie. I don’t know if it’s necessarily a comedy. This crap nowadays, I can’t even stand. I don’t even go to the movies anymore. I really don’t. I don’t watch TV, I don’t do anything.

Do you watch your own movies?

Oh yeah, yeah, usually I go to the premiere or whatever. I mean, that’s fun! I mean, you did all that frickin’ work, you might as well go see the damn thing.

My favorite movie last year was “Amour.” That was the best movie of last year. It’s the best one. My grandma had a stroke about 10 years before she died, and I had to watch her in a similar state to the character Emmanuelle Riva plays, so for me it was a very emotional experience, very personal.

Are there any of yours that you really like?

I’ll revisit some now and then, if the opportunity presents itself. I don’t sit at home and obsessively watching my movies. The movie I’m most fond of is “Take Shelter,” really, out of all the movies I’ve made. I have a lot of them though that I’m fond of. I was in Sidney Lumet’s last picture, for chrissakes, that was pretty cool. The last one before he died.

What do you think is your most underrated film?

Yeah, yeah, I got two of ‘em: “The Missing Person” and “Grand Theft Parsons,” did you see that? I wish more people would see those two movies, because I’m actually very proud of those two movies.

Were they just under-marketed, or not received the way you would have liked?

“The Missing Person” was released by a company that, honestly, should just go out of business. Strand Releasing can just roast in hell. “Grand Theft Parsons,” I don’t know what happened with that. I don’t know what released it. It’s tough. There’s so many damn movies. There’s more movies out there than there’s any need for. It’s ridiculous. Our “Iceman” movie is coming out the same weekend as “Iron Man 3.” I think we’ll do alright per screen. I hope so.

That sorority girl letter video is one of my favorite things ever. Did that voice come naturally to you?

I did it seven times. Two wides, two mediums, two close and one profile. And I didn’t get it until the profile, and the profile is when I nailed it. The wide, medium and tight, they’re okay, but the profile is really where I understood what was going on.

So what did you understand?

I found the voice, the rhythm. It’s not like a rational thing, it’s more like, it’s very ethereal. Acting is a very ethereal thing that’s not easy to explain in words.

Was it your idea to turn this into a monologue?

I had nothing to do with it. I didn’t even know about the letter. I never go on the internet. I read my emails every once in a while, that’s it.

Can you tell me anything I don’t already know about “Man of Steel”?

It’s about this guy named Superman, and he flies around and he, like, does stuff.

“The Iceman” arrives in theaters tomorrow. Check out our not so hot review.

Categories: Interviews

Tags: Michael shannon, Michael Shannon Interview, The Iceman

Minggu, 29 September 2013

Changing Suits: How ‘Iron Man 3′ Finally Fixes Superhero Movies

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The problem with superhero movies, broadly speaking, is that they struggle to convey a sense of balance. This is because every superhero film needs to establish two contradictory things simultaneously: on the one hand, in order to justify the classical modifier, the hero of the film must be depicted as at least nominally “super”, which is to say somehow exceptionally proficient and powerful. But on the other hand, in order to maintain some vaguely plausible illusion of suspense, the hero of the film must also be depicted as vulnerable, which is to say credibly at risk of losing to whomever is defined as the principal threat. An audience wants to feel impressed by a hero’s power but concerned that their power may be overcome, and what this means from a filmmaking perspective is that a superhero has to seem both indomitable and fragile at the same time.

I used to complain that I could never take the second and third “Matrix” films seriously, not only for the obvious reasons, but for the simple fact that they reject the rules of their predecessor. At the end of “The Matrix”, Neo has finally awakened to the reality around him and in doing so has become The One, a transformation which various characters have spent the better part of two hours explaining will make him essentially invincible. But it’s a hard to write a sequel to action movie, let alone two sequels, when you’ve just made your protagonist impervious to physical harm, which left the Wachowskis with two choices: either rob the hero of his powers at the outset (a colleague calls this “Metroiding”) or introduce new antagonists whose own powers up the ante, sort of a deus ex machina in reverse. The Wachowskis went with the latter option, which is why, in the first moments of “The Matrix Reloaded”, it’s explained that, oh right, the agents are new and improved, and also, oh yeah, we forgot to mention this but there are also evil programs roaming about with just enough power to be a believable threat, and I guess we just didn’t see them in the first film because…something.

Though it’s more pronounced in the “Matrix” sequels, this is a problem that plagues superhero franchises—extending past comic book heroes to cover even the last few Bond movies—inherent from their inception and increasingly difficult to write around as the follow-ups pile on. Over the last several years, it seems as though Hollywood screenwriters have devised a new approach to the superhero strength problem, one as stupefyingly simplistic as it is mildly effective: rather than tidily reconciling a hero’s omnipotence with the looming threat of the hour, these films opt to beat their supermen into the ground early, making the central dramatic tension a case of reconstitution. Slant Magazine’s John Semley, writing about the recent prime example of “Skyfall”, calls this the “tear-the-hero-down-that-he-may-rise” narrative, an arc that neatly writes film-school musts like crisis, trauma and redemption into the prefab dramatic folds, addressing the issue of too much power by sidestepping it entirely. And so we are now treated to endless bouts of broken-warrior syndrome: “The Dark Knight Rises” takes its lead out of the picture with a broken back for half the running time, “Skyfall” nearly kills its man of action in the first five minutes, “Thor” made its Nordic god human, and so on. Taking his power when at 100% for granted, the question no longer becomes “will our hero prevail?”, but the marginally distinguishable “will our hero become a hero again?”

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What’s irritating about these narratives—and I trust everyone agrees that the preeminent example remains “Spider-man 2”, which perhaps inadvertently kick-started the trend—is that, even if they manage to be dramatically compelling, they do so by effectively cheating the system. By making the crisis the hero’s temporary lack of power, they’re essentially proposing that the hero’s victory is guaranteed once their power has been restored; in other words these movies are making the task of creating an interesting conflict for an ordinary superhero even harder. This occurs through admission: a film like “The Dark Knight Rises” basically shrugs and says, look, if Batman were kicking around Gotham right now he wouldn’t let Bane get away with any of this, so in order for all of that to go down we’re just going to relegate him to a dungeon halfway across the world with a broken back. And once the Dark Knight inevitably Rises, the dynamic is restored: he handily defeats Bane and, after a few last-minute twists, stops the plot to destroy Gotham City.

Also check out: Our “Iron Man 3? review

From a conceptual standpoint, no superhero franchise has a harder time establishing balance than the “Iron Man” films. Part of the problem is that Iron Man only qualifies as a super at all when he rests comfortably inside that cherry-red suit—the man side of the equation, though charming, isn’t particularly capable on the battlefield—which, once donned, allows him to shoot rockets and lasers and break the sound barrier and generally just own. The only interesting conflicts in the first two “Iron Man” films, and the only interesting Iron Man-related conflicts in “The Avengers”, related to whether or not Iron Man was actually Iron Man. The thinking went thusly: Tony Stark is useless (and therefore boring to watch in a fight) and Iron Man is invincible (and therefore boring to watch in a fight), so the only way to make fight scenes interesting to devise increasingly complicated ways to briefly prevent Tony Stark from finding and getting into his suit. “Iron Man 2”, especially, never tired of obstructing the process for the sake of strained excitement: its most memorable setpiece, in which Mickey Rourke interrupted a bit of Nascar, was nothing more than ten minutes of watching Stark evade death until his wife and chauffeur could show up and get him dressed.

SOME “IRON MAN 3? SPOILERS FOLLOW.

“Iron Man Three”, rather than simply follow suit (and unsuit), reconceives the character, and in doing so becomes perhaps the first superhero film in years to effectively reconcile our sense of power with our concern for danger. The importance of getting this one thing right can’t be overstated: it fundamentally changes the nature of the franchise, transforming it from a low-stakes action film about a smarmy millionaire and his untouchable toy to a dynamic, well-balanced film about an innovative engineer and his problem-solving abilities. The genius conceit of “Iron Man Three”, as simple as it sounds, is that it reimagines Tony Stark as the superhero, not Iron Man; the suit becomes simply one tool of many in a creative technician’s arsenal, as useful as it is utterly disposable. And what’s remarkable is that not only is the film aware of this reconfiguration, it actively works the reconfiguration into the narrative fabric of the film: this is a film that’s actually about a man recognizing that he doesn’t need expensive future-tech to be heroic and to save the day. It’s about a man realizing his true potential through ingenuity and perseverance—not some vain attempt at “rebuilding” a hero but building a new one from the ground up.

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One of the most striking things about “Iron Man Three” is its central visual motif, one very much in keeping with its major themes: breakdown and failure hang over everything, disrupting plans, wiping out public spaces, making it impossible to get from point A to point B. Director Shane Black—who’s written these kinds of film-wide conceptual girders before, to similar effect—charts a course not from breakdown to perfection but from breakdown to nothing, its arc building not so much to an improved model as to a rejection of the model altogether. This plays out a bit like Brad Bird’s “Mission Impossible 4”, which also used technical failures as a motif; but where Bird employed malfunction as a kind of running gag, played always for laughs, “Iron Man Three” takes its constant defects much more seriously, viewing them as much a manifestation of internal crisis as a lack of care or maintenance. The point of the film is that Stark has to cope without: he has to overcome his foes without relying on the invincibility of his suit, but he also, more importantly, has to understand that the suit itself has been a crutch.

And even in the most superficial sense, the motif proves enormously fun to watch: we’re so accustomed to seeing Stark dodge foes until his suit becomes available (at which point he swats threats down like flies) that finding him fend for himself with what he has at his disposal is every bit as refreshing it as it is amusing. The film still has recourse to get Stark suited up, but the important distinction is that he’s rarely fully suited (and only ever momentarily): the tech is always failing, being dismantled, coming together in bits and pieces. At one point he fights a helicopter brigade without flight or combat power, and so he downs one with a carefully shoved grand piano; later he takes on a group of gunmen with only his right leg and left hand suited, and he flies by spinning in an impromptu corkscrew. It’s the hero as makeshift-super, his powers cobbled together and unwieldy.

One of the most spectacular setpieces in the film is one of its most low-key: Stark is facing off against a seemingly invincible woman in a small-town diner, ducking punches while handcuffed, when he’s forced to hot-wire homemade explosives out of a microwave and a set of metal dog tags. We’re made aware that Tony Stark was never just an ordinary guy in a powerful suit: he’s an exceptional guy in a suit of his own design and creation, and his capacity to make something like Iron Man is not only what defines his character, it’s what makes that character worth watching.

Categories: Features

Tags: Calum Marsh, Iron Man 3, Marvel Cinematic Universe, Shane Black, Superhero Movies