More Like Captain JERK: 7 Arrogant Action Heroes We Love to Hate

Of all of the retcon criticisms levelled by hardcore “Star Trek” fans against the J.J. Abrams reboot, the most contentious doesn’t relate to a change in style or tone. It has to do with the recalibrated personality of one Captain James Tiberius Kirk: though in the original series Kirk always had a smirk and an ace up his sleeve, the 2009 model leaned decidedly brasher, a few degrees closer to smarmy than Shatner could have ever pulled off. He became a quintessentially modern hero, updated for a more cynical hero: gallantry exchanged for quips, nobility traded in for a touch of sleaze, an air of total confidence upgraded to outright-arrogant cool. In the Abrams “Star Trek” films, in other words, Captain Kirk is kind of a jerk. A lovable jerk, of course, but a jerk nonetheless—an unabashed cheater, philanderer, and cocksure braggart, crashing headlong into danger with alarmingly little regard for his personal safety.

Fans bemoaned the change from the original vision (as fans are wont to do), but we ought to remember that the modern Kirk is proudly joining a long, substantive tradition of action hero assholes. And so, in honor of Kirk’s new outing this weekend, we’ve rounded up the great jerks of cinematic history.

- Errol Flynn as Robin Hood in “The Adventures of Robin Hood” (1938)

“The Adventures of Robin Hood” turns 75 this week, incidentally, which is as good a reminder as any that Errol Flynn basically birthed the action-hero braggart. It wasn’t enough for him to simply steal from the rich: early on the film finds him waltzing casually into the grand dining hall of the King to steal a chicken wing and basically mock his tormentors (from whom he escapes with ease, naturally). It’s proof positive that the merry men were also pretty badass.

- Harrison Ford as Han Solo in “Star Wars” (1979)

Though he was hardly the first brash charmer in cinema history, Harrison Ford’s take on everyone’s favorite space smuggler was so instantly iconic that it essentially set the template for the style going forward. No smarmy action heroes, sidekicks or otherwise, could ever emerge unindebted in his wake.

- Bruce Willis in John McClane “Die Hard With A Vengeance” (1995)

Though McClane was introduced to the world as a well-meaning family man with one-liners only for the villains, the second sequel in the “Die Hard” franchise made a show of seriously deglamorizing Bruce Willis’s beloved everyman schlub routine. Here McClane’s a hungover jerk dragged in off suspension, forced to save the town while enduring a day-long headache. It’s the reluctant hero as ne’er-do-well, a curmudgeon with a heart of gold.

- Humphrey Bogart as Rick Blaine in “Casablanca” (1942)

Rick Blaine was always more anti-hero than the regular kind, but, much like Kirk, his poor temperament came solely from a deeply felt loss. By the end of the picture it’s hard to feel anything but bad about Rick’s lot in life, even if he does make a show of fixing bets (for nice people) and lying to just about anyone (for a good cause).

- Orson Welles as Charles Foster Kane in “Citizen Kane” (1942)

Welles was always a theater man, and it shows in the grandiosity of his aging and tormented Kane. But it’s as the young, fresh-faced Kane—taking over a newspaper for a lark, being treated to a song and dance number, or generally evading the queries of his family lawyer—that Welles most naturally embodied Kane-as-lovable-scamp, annoying old money as he put his inheritance to work like a kid in a candy store.

- Elliott Gould as Philip Marlowe in “The Long Goodbye” (1973)

Philip Marlowe, as imagined by Raymond Chandler, was tough-as-nails and coolly professional, throwing out one-liners to cops and hired goons without a hint of a wink. But Gould’s take, as Robert Altman wrote it, was sort of the opposite: effortless cool with an emphasis on the “effortless”, gliding around a seedy Los Angeles lackadaisically, mumbling out witticisms instead of firing barbs.

- Guy Pearce as Snow in “Lockout” (2012)

“Lockout” wasn’t received with much enthusiasm when it came and when from theaters early last year, but the oversight was a real shame: Guy Pearce delivered one of his most appealing performances to date as an extended riff on the film noir anti-hero, his verbal sparring with the feds and heavies practically worthy of Dashiell Hammett. What’s not to love?

Categories: Lists

Tags: Casablanca, Chris pine, Citizen kane, Robin hood, Star Trek Into Darkness, The Long Goodbye

10 Great Black & White Films From the Last 20 Years

The upcoming Spring releases of two much-hyped black-and-white movies – Noah Baumbach’s “Frances Ha,” starring co-writer Greta Gerwig as an aspiring dancer, and Joss Whedon’s barebones stab at “Much Ado About Nothing” – left us wondering what modern movies have succeeded without the benefit of a full palette. So, with that in mind, here’s a look back at ten gloriously colorless (or largely color-deprived) movies from the last two decades.

“SCHINDLER’S LIST” (Steven Spielberg) 1993

The most famous director of all-time has loads of classics under his belt, including “E.T.” “Jaws” and “Raiders of the Lost Ark” but most critics view “Schindler’s List,” Spielberg’s deeply personal Holocaust drama, as his masterwork. Speilberg used color only sporadically through the film, most memorably on a small Jewish girl’s red coat as she attempts to navigate the chaos of the Krakow ghetto, and in the final scene as Schindler Jews are shown at Oskar Schindler’s grave site in Jerusalem.

“ED WOOD” (Tim Burton) 1994

Before he viewed powdering and propping up Johnny Depp as passable filmmaking, Tim Burton was was crafting some of the most entertaining movies of the late eighties and early nineties, including “Beetlejuice” and “Edward Scissorhands.” But Burton’s best examination of outsiderdom might have been “Ed Wood,” his biopic of the “Plan 9 From Outer Space” director, with Depp shining in the titular role. Burton returned to black-and-white with last year’s stop-motion fantasy “Frankenweenie” — a well-received return to form for Burton that was quietly one of the most fun-to-watch animated movies of the year.

“CLERKS” (Kevin Smith) 1994

In 2013, Kevin Smith has his fair share of detractors, and his directing career has proven to be a case of diminishing returns. But love him or hate him (and certainly you do one of those two things) Smith’s crudely acted, shoestring-budget debut “Clerks” has been hugely influential on the modern comedy scene, paving the way for mumblecore and the Apatow empire by making aimless dialogue about sex and “Star Wars” totally kosher, just so long as it’s entertaining. The movie also went on to inspire a (colored) sequel and a highly underrated animated television spin-off. Smith recently announced he will round out the “Clerks” saga as a trilogy, and make “Clerks 3? his final film.

“FOLLOWING” (Chris Nolan) 1998

Christopher Nolan’s first feature, made for a nearly unfathomable $6,000 dollars, feels like a $250 million universe from “The Dark Knight Rises.” But the twisty neo noir is still a Nolan flick through and through, featuring a meticulous plot, non-linear narrative, and obsessive characters with motivations you can’t quite pin down until the end. Nolan scores craftiness points not only for his clever story, which revolves around a shifty loner who begins to follow strangers, but also his ability to pull it off on an essentially non-existant budget.

“THE GIRL ON THE BRIDGE” (Patrice Leconte) 1999

Patrice Leconte is one of the few filmmakers whose range and restlessness might put Steven Soderbergh to shame. This glisteningly monochrome 1999 charmer about a knife-thrower (the great Daniel Auteuil) who uses suicidal young women as targets for his circus act plays like a mad French emulsion of a Federico Fellini film. Starring the gorgeously gap-toothed Vanessa Paradis as a girl with all the love in the world but no one on whom to pin it, this woozy romantic does more with shades than most movies could with a full Technicolor palette.

“THE MAN WHO WASN’T THERE” (Joel and Ethan Coen) 2001

Buried in the shadow of three better-known Coen Brothers works (“Fargo,” “The Big Lebowski,” and “O Brother, Where Art Thou”), the often-overlooked “The Man Who Wasn’t There” is among the two-headed directing monsters’ best. As usual, the Coens were none too kind to their protagonist, sending the reticent Ed Crane (an exceptional Billy Bob Thornton) on a bottomless downward spiral following a failed blackmailing scheme. The neo noir throwback features appearances from Coen regulars Frances McDormand, Jon Pilito, and Richard Jenkins, as well some inspired villainy from James Gandolfini, and a pre-stardom Scarlett Johansson.

“SIN CITY” (Robert Rodriguez) 2005

Robert Rodriguez’s adaptation of Frank Miller’s graphic novel was just as entertaining as it was uber-violent, and brought Mickey Rourke back onto the Hollywood map with his memorable turn as the murderous, damn-near unkillable Marv. The gory neo noir, which also starred Clive Owen, Benicio Del Toro, Rosario Dawson, and Bruce Willis, opened the door for more R-rated graphic novel adaptations – including “The 300? “The Watchmen” and Kick-Ass” – to make it into theaters. The long-anticipated sequel, “A Dame to Kill For,” is due out later this year.

“GOOD NIGHT AND GOOD LUCK” (George Clooney) 2005

George Clooney established himself as serious filmmaker with “Good Night and Good Look” a behind-the-scenes look at hard-smoking, no-nonsense Edward R. Murrow’s toe-to-toe face-off with Joseph McCarthy at the height of the Red Scare. It didn’t hurt that Clooney put together an impressive cast that included Robert Downey Jr., Frank Langella, Jeff Daniels and an unforgettable David Straitharn as the stone-faced Murrow. Serving as a slick criticism of the Bush administration’s War on Terror, “Good Night and Good Luck” made a compelling case for television – probably our most sneered-at medium – to be used in an ongoing battle against dishonesty and injustice.

“PERSEPOLIS” (Vincent Paronnaud & Marjane Satrapi) 2007

Part coming-of-age tale and part exploration of the complex effects of United States interventionism, Marjane Satrapi’s animated adaptation of her autobiographical graphic novel suited the screen every bit as well as it suited the page. Satrapi’s tale of growing up amidst the political turmoil of 1980s Iran served as a touching reminder that while the grown-ups of the world grapple with religion and geopolitics, kids everywhere mostly just want to wear sneakers, drink a little booze, and listen to Michael Jackson. Strapi credits the movie’s black-and-white luck to her background in underground comics.

“THE WHITE RIBBON” (Michael Haneke) 2009

Michael Haneke is one of the few foreign directors regularly recognized in the United States, and for good reason: his work, from “Cache” to “Amour,” is consistently beautiful and wrenching. “White Ribbon,” his bleak examination of oppressive rural life in pre-World War I Germany, is just as haunting and heavy as his better-known works, and almost impossible to imagine in color. ‘The White Ribbon” went somewhat under the radar in the US, but took home the Palme d’Or at Cannes in 2009.

Editor’s note: I’d add “Tabu,” “Lake of Fire,” “The Day He Arrives,” and pretty much everything made by Béla Tarr and Guy Maddin. What are some of your favorites, or films that we’re forgetting? Let us know in the comments section below.

Categories: Features

Tags: Black & White, Ed Wood, Frances Ha, Much Ado About Nothing, Schindler's list, The White Ribbon

BACK TO THE FUTURE III (1990)

Tanggal Rilis : 25 May 1990 (USA)
Jenis Film : Adventure | Comedy | Sci-Fi
Diperankan Oleh : Michael J. Fox, Christopher Lloyd, Mary Steenburgen

Ringkasan Cerita BACK TO THE FUTURE III (1990) :

Stranded in 1955, Marty McFly receives written word from his friend, Doctor Emmett Brown, as to where can be found the DeLorean time machine. However, an unfortunate discovery prompts Marty to go to his friend’s aid. Using the time machine, Marty travels to the old west where his friend has run afoul of a gang of thugs and has fallen in love with a local schoolteacher. Using the technology from the time, Marty and Emmett devise one last chance to send the two of them back to the future.

[IMDb rating : 7.3/10]
[Awards : 4 wins & 8 nominations]
[Production Co : Universal Pictures, Amblin Entertainment, U-Drive Productions]
[IMDb link : http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0099088]

[Quality : BRRip 720p]
[File Size : 700 MB]
[Format : Matroska >> mkv]
[Resolution : 1280x696]
[Source : 720p.BluRay]
[Encoder : nItRo]

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Review: ‘Fast & Furious 6′

The opening rap lyric of “Fast & Furious 6” professes that “Only God can judge,” which is as fitting a mantra for the entire “Fast” series as you’ll find this side of a NASCAR track. For really, what is there to judge? The cars go extremely fast, the (non-supporting) ladies traipse around in skimpy outfits, and the stunts somehow get bigger and badder each and every time out of the gate. Plausibility? Uhh, no thanks. Realistic aerial physics? Ha, good one! Jocular humor combined with death-defying action? Well, sure, yes please, and drive through safely. This is a franchise entirely comfortable with what it is, what it’s not, and what it has to offer. It has a whole mess of “Fast” for us all, and woe be the souls who enter this film hoping to go slow.

Before we get into the relative merits of “Fast & Furious 6,” it’s high time we unpack one of the true oddities of the series, the very wonky timeline. To take you back, the third “Fast and Furious,” beautifully titled “The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift” was, perhaps mistakenly, placed ahead of the rest of the franchise, meaning “Fast Five” is in fact prior to “Tokyo Drift”. This salient issue has certainly caused the “Fast” writing team to twist themselves into knots with near constant continuity conundrums. And for what? To include Lucas Black? To gross less money than any of the other films? Okay, they managed to get Sung Kang (as Han) out of the deal, so it wasn’t a complete debacle, only 90 percent of one (and that’s coming from one of the few “Tokyo Drift” apologists).

Which brings us to “Fast & Furious 6? – a film that has any number of goals, some of them in stark opposition. The film wanted to bring back a main character, no spoilers ahead, but they also needed to get back on track with the timeline, if only to stop writing in the past tense, fact-checking every line of dialogue as if it was under Congressional subpoena. Naturally, they also needed to make an exciting and entertaining film, somehow weave Dwayne Johnson in again, up the action quotient, all while having some overarching motivation for the “gang” to get back together (after they struck it rich the last time around). You’ll remember most of the crew from “Fast Five” all the way back in 2011, the usual suspects, Ludacris, Gal Gadot, Paul Walker, Vin Diesel, Tyrese Gibson, and of course the aforementioned Dwayne Johnson. The camaraderie and chemistry are fun, gallows humor utilized throughout, and no scene is too far way from a huge action sequence. Here is a popcorn and soda film for 2013, even more than the superhero films, the “Fast” franchise has now taken root as the go-to pulp entertainment.

The mission this time around? Well, of course it’s to protect the universe from a “Nightshade Tech Bomb” which is just as awful as it sounds. This weapon does something along the lines of blinding a military for a day, which I suppose would be instant death for the country targeted? Or something along those lines? The stakes certainly seem to be very high, and luckily most of the fighting is handled in very speedy cars. And oh, the cars, the lovely NOS-laden American and Foreign muscle on full and shiny chrome display. The Dodge Challenger makes a few appearances (I want them to get their product-placement money’s worth) as well as a host of BMWs, Chargers, Nissans, and an Aston Martin naturally, thrown in for good measure. There’s plenty of military hardware on display here too, and that’s not even counting The Rock’s physique (heeeyoooo). Many callbacks are utilized to tickle your sentimental bone, all in an effort to make this more of an “event” than an actual movie, but it would be dishonest not to cede that it mostly works. For “Fast and Furious” is a franchise to get sentimental about, perhaps the last true action series left (with apologies to Daniel Craig and his “Bond” series). There are also, scientifically speaking, a billion action scenes. At least! Scenes where life, death, property damage, and Hemi Motors hang desperately in the balance. At some point in “Fast & Furious 6? everyone will have to save everyone, twists transpire galore, fist fights, car fights, and gun fights satiating every member of the “I’m loving perilous situations” club.

Are there clear issues in “Fast & Furious 6?? Of course! These issues can be counted off in rapid succession, especially as the film culminates, there are so many problems you’d need to involve a non-dominant hand and both of your feet for a proper tally. The way they bring the forgotten main character back, the timing involved in numerous action scenes, the sheer implausibility of most of the “big” moments – if you are the logical sort you could end up very angry about the entire endeavor. Still, I don’t know who sees the “Fast” series in that sort of mood, for this is the very definition of a “benefit of the doubt” style movie. Comedy, danger, bro-mances, “ride or die,” and flirty sexual looks from badass female drivers, this movie has something for everyone, so long as everyone wants their action supercharged and shot through a firehose, the copious gallons of water washing over even the heartiest of intellects.

SCORE: 8.0 / 10

Categories: Reviews

Tags: Fast and Furious 6, Justin Lin, Laremy legel, Paul walker, Review, The rock, Vin diesel

Fanboy Meets World: Why J.J. Abrams Is a Khan Artist

SPOILER WARNINGS LIKE THE GALACTIC BARRIER, YO.

One line. One word, really. Heck, four letters, though four letters stretched out quite a bit. Removing them from the final cut of “Star Trek Into Darkness” would have done a lightyears worth of goodwill for this long time Trek fan. The insistence of Abrams and Co. to stick with their policy of legacy-mining and expecting us to all squee with joy is, at heart, why I’m grousing – even though I admit that, in broad strokes, I enjoyed “Star Trek Into Darkness” a great deal. (My review at ScreenCrush, if you are interested.)

It goes like this: there are a number of really annoying little things about this movie, and you can find an exhaustive list of quibbles at the bottom of this post.

But first we need to focus on the biggest disaster, of course, is deciding to shoehorn the “known” bad guy Khan into the mix. Because everybody knows Kirk and Khan are matched enemies, even people (like Abrams) who don’t watch “Star Trek.” It’s perfect marketing. (Although Abrams, being an M Class nincompoop, decided to kneecap his own movie by keeping this secret. The moment when Benedict Cumberbatch says “My name is Khan” is the worst of both worlds. Fans get annoyed by the obvious, while non-fans – unaware that Khan didn’t have a fake identity in the original, and unfamiliar with what the name portends – say “so?” and “who?” unsure why there was this whole mystery to begin with. )

Prima facie it is a failure. Khan’s Eugenics War is supposed to take place in the 1990s, and his banishment on the Botany Bay took place prior to the destruction of the USS Kelvin in the 2009 reboot. This means that it existed before the timeline split.

Does this mean that I refuse to accept another actor playing Khan? No, I’m not a complete mental patient. But Khan Noonien Singh is supposed to be a Sikh from northern India. Ricardo Mantalban of Mexico City could at least pass. Benedict Cumberbatch of London, England does not. (Those who read the trades know that Abrams’ first choice was Benecio Del Toro, which shows a somewhat lazy attempt to get it half-right. When Del Toro passed there were rumors about Edgar Ramirez and Jordi Molla – nothing, however, about Indian actors, but come on . . . it’s not like India has one of the world’s most thriving film industries or anything.)

ALL OF THE ABOVE. ALL OF THIS I WOULD BE WILLING TO SUSPEND MY DISBELIEF AND ACCEPT. WE’RE GOOD SO FAR UNTIL. . .

The line.

The yell.

The howl.

It wasn’t enough that the focus group-based crypto-creation machine knows as Bad Robot decided to take the easy route and stick Khan in this movie. They had to go “full retard.”

When Kirk dies at the end (but just for like five minutes, because no one would ever accuse this group of having the courage of its convictions) Zachary Quinto’s nu-Spock, unable to contain his Earth emotions, starts to tremble and quake as Michael Giacchino’s score rumbles until finally. . . “KHAAAAAAAAAAAN!”

It’s an insult. And an embarrassment. It makes Jake Lloyd saying “Yippiee!” sound like Peter Finch’s monologue from “Network.”

It hurts because this movie can’t just appropriate the character Khan from the originals, it has to go and appropriate the “meme,” too.

“Khaaaaaaaan!” as rallying cry is a relatively recent creation, egged on by a “Seinfeld” episode from 1996. I didn’t see “Khaaaaaaaan!” on a T-shirt until 2008 or so (and, believe me, I would have noticed.) It began as a bit of a goof. A play on Shatner as a lovable and, let’s face it, not-always-great actor. It’s as much a play on Denny Crane and the Priceline Negotiator than it is on actual “Star Trek.”

(To be fair to Shatner, there is the theory that Captain Kirk is quite aware of his “overacting” in this scene, as it is Kirk’s intention to fake Khan into thinking that he’s truly won by stranding him on Regula, whereas the Enterprise’s captain actually has an ace up his sleeve. I strongly suggest you read my 2009 interview with “Wrath of Khan” director Nicholas Meyer for a full breakdown of all this.)

You can practically see Abrams in story meetings, sixteen cellphones held by assistants up to his head as he closes deals on television shows, saying “yeah, yeah, we gotta have the line!” with no actual understanding about what it means – how, to fans of “Star Trek,” this little bit of ridiculousness is our ridiculousness, and to do a clip and paste of it into the emotional death-by-radiation scene is an atrocity.

There’s another problem. Quinto doesn’t nail it. Quinto is a decent enough actor, about as good of a Nimoy proxy as we’re likely to get. But there’s a reason he’s segued his “Star Trek” fame into producing whereas nearly everyone else in the crew has taken leading roles in mainstream pictures.

The Bad Robot team probably expected hoots and hollers from fans when Quinto delivered the line. My gut tells me that test audiences never gave it – which is why there isn’t room for a beat afterwards (the action cuts mid-scream to the Vengeance smashing into the Enterprise while both ships are in Earth’s stratosphere.)

The lack of reaction (and I’ve seen the film with audiences twice) is, I’m guessing, a mix of Quinto’s middling delivery and the fact that, in the context of this film, it doesn’t make a lick of sense. Khan isn’t really the one responsible for Kirk’s death. Kirk had to go fix the reactor core because of cumulative damage from throughout the film – damage that started with Admiral Marcus’ sabotage.

Quinto could just as well be shouting “MAAAAAAAARCUS!!!!” or at least “MAAAAAAARCUS AND KHAAAAAAAAAAN WORKING IN CONJUUUUUUUUUUUNCTION!” But he doesn’t, because it’s important to get the meme in there, because the people in charge of this movie really and truly don’t get it.

There’s something they teach you in any creative program: kill your babies. Sometimes you have to cut out great stuff for the sake of the larger piece. You’d think “Star Trek Into Darkness,” a film that cut the COLON out of the title, would know how to make a cut. But this line, this word, these four letters remain in the finished film. If it were gone I may would have been able to ignore all the other problems in the film – or at least accept them a little easier. I still like “Star Trek Into Darkness” a great deal, because Abrams knows where to put the camera and, with the exception of this beat, all the performances are great. But this is because I have the ability to root out the good parts in a movie, even when I’m being khanned.

And now, bring out the quibbles!

** World-building problems like: why would a Federation hospital, even in England, have the monarchial name “Royal” associated with it?

** Story beats like Nero’s 25-year wait from 2009's “Star Trek” that were probably explained in earlier versions of the script, but were removed so this movie could zoom at Warp Factor 6, like: If Section 31 was just blown to bits, how did “John Harrison” find the transwarp beaming device after the bombing? And if he didn’t, then what was in that black bag that Kirk was focusing on? And how did Kirk just contact Scotty on his communicator without patching through to Uhura’s communications array? And how did they get from Kronos to Earth in only, like, 45 seconds of warp?

** Inexplicable gales in logic, like: why would a new super torpedo, even if it runs on some new, undetectable fuel source, have ROOM to let you just, you know, crack it open and stick a giant 20th Century cryotube inside of it? How is this efficient design?!??!?

** Moments of great disrespect to the audience, like: Why wouldn’t Carol Marcus just, like, wait 30 seconds to get undressed, or step in another room? (Answer: super bowl ads demand a panty shot, but we Trekkers should demand more!)

** Moments of great disrespect to the legacy of “Star Trek,” like: Carol Marcus implying that Kirk the Jerk pulled a “love ‘em and leave ‘em” on Christine Chapel. Pardon me? Christine Chapel? You mean . . .Gene Roddenberry’s wife? If this isn’t Abrams and his gang “marking their territory” on Roddenberry’s version of “Star Trek” in the most disgusting, phallocentric way, then I don’t know what is! (Eh, I’ll allow that Abrams, who time and again in interviews has proven he doesn’t know, and doesn’t care, about “Star Trek” history didn’t mean it this way. But someone should have spot-checked this and changed the pointless fan-wank namedrop to somebody else.)

Categories: Columns

Tags: Fan Rant, Fanboy Meets World, J.j. abrams, Jordan hoffman, Khan, Star trek, Star Trek Into Darkness

The 10 Best ‘Star Trek’ Movie Deaths

Despite being set in space, “Star Trek” takes its heritage from naval adventure stories, and death is always a certainty on such dangerous voyages. In its ongoing mission to seek out new life and new civilizations the crew of the Enterprise has faced the grim reaper on many occasions, despite Kirk and Picard’s best efforts to avoid a Kobayashi Maru scenario.

Since at least one major character probably gives up the ghost in “Star Trek Into Darkness,” we thought we’d count down the most memorable moments among the eleven previous big screen Treks when crew members and baddies alike bit the dust… hard.

This has been, and always shall be, the most earth-shattering death in the entire “Star Trek” canon. What makes it the greatest? Gravitas. Spock and Kirk’s relationship is at the core of everything. Leonard Nimoy and William Shatner carry that unmanufactured camaraderie into the scene, along with their eternal conflict of cold logic vs. human instinct. When these two friends stare at each other through radiation shielding, the pointy-eared Vulcan having sacrificed himself to save the ship, Kirk must face death for the first time. His valedictory speech at Spock’s funeral is the final gut punch: “Of all the souls I have encountered, his was the most… human.” *NERD TEARS*

Although we, as an audience, only discovered that David (the late Merritt Butrick) was Kirk’s son, like, less than a movie ago, he bites the dust here, albeit valiantly. When Commander Kruge (Christopher Lloyd) orders that one of his prisoners on the planet Genesis be killed, David prevents Spock from getting stabbed by some Klingon prick, making the ultimate sacrifice. Lieutenant Saavik (Robin Curtis) breaks the heartbreaking news to Kirk. In a reportedly accidental ad-lib, Shatner falls off his captain’s chair, expressing Kirk’s shock, loss and uncharacteristic helplessness. “Klingon bastards, you killed my son!” For all the crap Shatner gets as a repeat offender scenery chewer, he handles this scene with the sensitivity and grace of a true pro.

When William Shatner was a young understudy in the ’50s taking over Christopher Plummer’s role as Henry V at the Stratford Shakespeare Festival, he probably never imagined he’d be torpedoing Plummer in a movie nearly forty years later. Plummer fought hard with the studio to crack a new Klingon look, and his bald south seas pirate getup surely did the trick, as General Chang proved to be Kirk’s most devious adversary since Khan. That made it all the more satisfying when Dr. McCoy and Spock’s specially modified torpedo finds Chang’s cloaked ship. Plummer’s famous last words are, ironically, Shakespeare’s: “To be… or not… to be…”

Christopher Lloyd has had such a monumentally eclectic career, whether he’s playing a loony scientist in “Back to the Future,” a loony cabbie on the show “Taxi,” or a loony toon in “Who Framed Roger Rabbit,” but to play a renegade Klingon in “Search for Spock” Lloyd channeled a side we hadn’t seen: Cold, calculated evil. Of course he orders the death of David, so Kruge has to pay, and the mano-a-mano between he and Kirk is as pummeling as you’d want it to be. Even though Kirk shows mercy as Kruge dangles off the cliff on a crumbling Genesis, the proud Klingon makes one last pyrrhic jab, causing Shatner to kick his dirty teeth in and utter “I (*kick*)… have had (*kick*)… enough of YOU!” (*kick, fall into lava, DEAD*).

J.J. Abrams wanted to kick his franchise reboot off with a bang, so why not have Kirk’s birth occur simultaneously with his father’s death? Okay. This event skews the timeline of the series into its current layman-friendly iteration, and it helps that the mighty Chris Hemsworth was able to make George Kirk the kind of hotshot heroic archetype little Jimmy could strive towards once he enlists in Starfleet twenty-some years later. Ramming the U.S.S. Kelvin right into the Romulan squid ship took brass cojones, and earned the event a major place in history, as exemplified by a whole memorial museum seen behind Benedict Cumberbatch in “Into Darkness.”

Okay, so a lot of Trekkies do NOT dig this final curtain for perhaps the numero uno space hero of all-time. How can you blame them, since Kirk basically slips off a bridge like a loser? What? However, a lot of folks miss the metaphoric significance of this, since you could argue it represents a bridge between the original cast and the “Next Generation.” When that bridge collapses and Kirk dies, it allows Patrick Stewart’s Captain Picard the opportunity to literally bury Kirk and finally be his own man. Too bad it only led to three more sub-par films. As Shatner says, perhaps forseeing future installments: “It was fun… oh my.”

Probably the series’ trippiest death scene –this was the ’70s after all- it has the demoted new captain of the Enterprise Will Decker (Stephen Collins) merging with his old Deltan girlfriend Ilia (Persis Khambatta) via the mystical light powers of space probe Vger. Huh? Yeah. Collins’ hair billows upwards like its being blow dried, and sparkly stars transform he and Ilia into a pure being of some kind, but in terms of their being people they’re basically dead. It looks like something Jim Jones would describe to get his followers to drink the Kool-Aid, and for that reason alone it makes the cut.

The assassination of Klingon leader Gorkon (David Warner) on the eve of intergalactic peace talks gets the conspiracy plot of this final voyage for the original cast going with an added enhancement: CGI space blood. Pink floating globules of fluid squirting out of Klingons in Zero-G looked pretty rad in 1991, and still kinda does today. It was a clever sequence concocted by director Nicholas Meyer, and Warner plays perhaps the most sympathetic Klingon we’d seen onscreen… until Worf, that is. The scene where Bones tries unsuccessfully to revive him through CPR is genuinely moving and icky.

In unquestionably the crummiest “Trek” outing ever, Picard faces off against an ugly clone of himself named Shinzon (played by the handsome Tom Hardy) who threatens to spray Earth with this green stuff that’ll melt people. Boring. Picard ices Sh**zon via impaling, but it’s everyone’s favorite wacky cyborg Data who saves the day, transports Picard back aboard Enterprise 1701-E and shoots the green glowing goo so it blows up. This sacrifice has special significance to actor Brent Spiner since he co-wrote the screenplay, undercutting the death by having them conveniently find Data’s brother, but the crew’s remembrance/toast of Data is touching.

In J.J. Abrams’ in-your-face “Star Trek” universe it’s not dramatic enough to simply have Spock’s mom killed, but ALL OF VULCAN has to die. Damn, dude! Chill with the holocausts already! To add insult to serious injury, Spock (Zachary Quinto) watches his human mother Amanda (Winona Ryder) perish as the ground crumbles beneath her just before she can be beamed up. DUUUUUUDE. What really makes this whole scenario fascinating is how much they had to make up Ryder (age 41) to smooth over the age disparity with Quinto (age 35). Now THAT’S a time warp.

Categories: Features

Tags: Star trek, Star Trek Generations, Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, Star Trek III: The Search For Spock, Star Trek Into Darkness, Star Trek The Motion Picture, Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country, Star Trek: Nemesis

The Art House: The Movie Posters of ‘Star Trek’

Rotary phones. Turn dial TV sets. Card catalogs. I’m old enough to have been on the receiving end of some humanity’s more antiquated technological innovations, and their growing pains. Most generations go through this. Just ask that slowly decaying relative of yours that preaches incessantly about how things were when they were young. Past all of their tales of snow-covered soleless shoe adversity often lies a yearning for the past, something tangible and real but also betraying of memory. Suddenly we’re older, nestled in our elder’s recliner, looking back through rose colored glasses and pining for the way things used to be, not fully understanding the way things are or remembering how they were. Thing’s aren’t the same, but what’s really changed?

Star Trek has, and the best of both worlds scenario you dreamt of as a kid seems to have taken place: what you enjoyed is shared and liked seemingly by everyone, rather than being the thing that gets your school books knocked to the floor. Friday sees the second installment of J.J. Abrams’ popular space faring franchise opening in theatres after months of intense marketing, which kicked off with a poster that drew more than a few comparisons to that of a previous summer blockbusters. Originality aside, a mangled Starfleet insignia managed to convey more thought and elicit more emotion than the work that followed. Unfortunate, sure, but disappointment is often felt when reflecting on the state of modern movie posters. What puts Star Trek in a unique position is that its long history within cinema has brought a host of admirable work from a few of the industry’s more gifted craftsmen. Higher expectations are unsurprising. But like anything else, though, the franchise has showcased some particularly unfortunate instances of poster abuse. The past is rarely as clear cut and beautiful as we remember it being.

From 1979 to 1989, American artist Bob Peak beautifully rendered key art for five out of six of the original classic-series Star Trek films. Having made a name for himself prior for his work on My Fair Lady and Camelot with designer Bill Gold, Peak’s output gave rise to his status as an influential father in the creation of the modern film poster. Whereas other designers or agencies joined copy and still photography to grab a viewer’s attention, Peak, a self-described craftsman, illustrated and painted layered collages that drew you in through their rich use of color and compositional placement. They play to tone and scene, channeling an atmosphere that unfolds over the journey taken by each film’s story.

And that was perfect for Star Trek; the franchise has strength in its interplay between unique depictions of space exploration and alien worlds with its characters that serve to give those wonders purpose. Bringing that to the attention of an audience asks for more than a witty tagline, some enlarged still photography, or a clever execution of form as symbol (the Saul Bass work that you’re undoubtedly familiar with wouldn’t fly here). It can be done, but you lose something in the process: the deft hand of craftsmanship that sets up a world that you can feel and get lost in. The vastness of space punctuated by a curious use of color. The looming figure of a titular character awash in the place that seeds his desire for revenge. A small group, far from home, searching for a lost friend. Our own backyard, seen from the clouds. We can debate the use of floating heads some other time, but what remains are five well-made paintings, with a sixth, equally strong effort from John Alvin; all of which prepare us for the stars. 

But, rose colored glasses. Much like today, campaigns offered up more than a single visual representation for its star attraction, and these alternate takes were used in conjunction with the pieces we remember being the sole arbiters of a film’s identity. And occasionally a piece of connective tissue remains between the two. For all it’s majestic beauty, Wrath of Khan sports a title treatment that appears actively at odds with the rest of the composition, damaging any illusion of uniformity. It’s shoehorned in, feeling more at home surrounded by block after block of still photography found in the second, alternate poster.

Search for Spock found itself the victim of marketing mandates, with Peak’s painting unceremoniously cropped and placed within a frame before being lathered with text. The art itself remains visually stunning, but almost completely neutered here thanks to the cage it’s been imprisoned in. A simple, more direct take from the same era by Gerard Huerta was mercifully spared, carving out a space for itself through clarity rather than being all that remarkable visually.

While Peak’s future contributions remained unsullied, two of the most inexplicable instances of marketing gone awry owe themselves to The Voyage Home and The Final Frontier. Words are hard to find here, as the former illustrates a screwball time-traveling buddy-comedy from space while the latter borders on bad promotional parody. They’re completely divorced from expectation, yet they manage to be somewhat appropriate. Voyage Home is a bit of a joyous romp, and Final Frontier is a bit of a head scratcher, so surely we’re not too far off from seeing a rational response to a well considered brief… Never mind. I think I need to lie down.

1991 saw John Alvin take Bob Peak’s place for the final film featuring the classic series crew. Things were changing. A burgeoning aversion to painted pieces by studio executives and marketing teams took hold in the mid to late 90s, marshalled on by the idea that the audience themselves preferred and gave their business to films backed with still photography. Modern advancements became heavily relied upon while more traditional methods fell by the wayside. An oddly fitting time for a transition, as the next generation of Star Trek films focused on the modern television cast, striking out a new identity over the course of four films. The worst that can be said about the work that was born from this shift is that some of it was dull, while the best did what it was designed to do, and not much else.

Generations offers a shift in color palette, casting space and a transparent Starfleet insignia in a sea of blue and purple. The lens flare is overdone, and there’s no real world building here, but an effort was made at being honest about the novelty of the picture: a new series of films, changing hands from one generation to the next. Floating visages of the central characters carry themselves over from the Peak era, and continue to do so in the art for First Contact, which lifts the motif of three characters superimposed in a beam of light from The Motion Picture while finishing off it’s remaining structure by mirroring elements of the key art from The Final Frontier. It’s a little pastiche, and a bit unevenly handled, but it does it manages to do its job without embarrassment.

The same can’t be said for Insurrection and Nemesis, the final two films before someone had the good graces to throw everything out and start anew. The former, while eye catching, is an empty vessel, checking off the few things that someone would ascribe to Star Trek: space, planet, spaceship…ominous alien? It’s attractive but shallow, bereft of a clear journey that it should be imparting on the viewer. A success, though, next to its predecessor, which suffers the unfortunate fate of not only having little to say but comes dangerously close to embodying the snide remarks commonly made at the state of modern film posters. Twenty-three years of art for a culturally relevant science fiction franchise pauses here with some green space clouds and a bald shadow with a knife.

I lied. I guess dull isn’t the worst thing you could say about the final art for Nemesis. But I think that gets us to where we need to be: the present, and a rebooted franchise that acknowledges its past while looking ahead to the future. A modern day blockbuster with a designed-to-sell campaign to match. They’re polished and formulaic, an approach that feels like it could be replicated across any number of tentpole films. And that’s because it has.

Actors and a brand name are being sold – no different from any other point in history – but within the history of Star Trek, what we’ve been concerned with here, things have changed. The franchise reaches a bigger and broader audience than it once used to, and with that comes a built-in hype machine, one that guarantees box office success. But there are no creative leaps forward for advertising: more money is spent, yet the work itself becomes safer. Maybe it’s because a large picture of an actor tracks best? Maybe it’s because a poster doesn’t occupy the same space that it used to: narratives can be forged in any number of different ways now thanks to expanding media markets. A poster just needs a name and a face – a reminder for elsewhere. That large sheet of paper is  a technology that’s been stripped of it’s power by the people creating it and the people paying for it. Sure, there were missteps in the past – things are rarely as wonderful as we remember them – but art and commerce begrudgingly worked together, giving us more good to look back on than bad. What good do we have to look back on here? Not much aside from a surprising monochrome spaceship.

It’s not that Star Trek or Star Trek: Into the Darkness champion bad design, because the work itself isn’t that at all. You know bad design when you see it: it usually stirs some type of emotion in you. This isn’t that. There’s just little emotion to be felt from most of it aside from exhaustion at being fed the same meal time and again. Peak may have had a style, and that might’ve constituted a brand, but a willingness to explore what those things meant bore out a decade of engaging imagery.

Boldly going where everyone has gone before. That’s Star Trek’s present, but it doesn’t have to be its future.

Check out the previous installment of The Art House: Welcome to the Silver Screen Society

Categories: Columns

Tags: Brandon schaefer, Movie posters, Star trek, Star Trek Into Darkness, The Art House

VIKINGS SEASON 01

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Ringkasan Cerita VIKINGS SEASON 01 : Vikings merupakan film serial yang berceritakan tentang Ragnar yang mejadi Raja dan legenda bagi suku tersebut.
Seperti yang dfder pernah dengar Vikings adalah suku perompak, penjarah, pembajak perampok dan penuh dengan kekerasan. Yup, Dfder benar, tv serial ini menceritakan petualangan dari Ragnar Lothbrok bagaimana ia bisa menjadi sebuah legenda. Dimulai dari bagaimana Ia mulai menentang sang kepala suku, membuat kapal laut penjelajahnya yang mejadi legenda, hingga menjadi seorang yang beringas haus akan harta dan darah. Ditemani oleh adik serta istrinya, Vikings season 01 merupakan favorite anne.
Peringatan buat Dfder, meskipun serial ini tidak sesadis dan sevulgar Spartacus, namun tetap masuk kategori 18+.
Jadi buat dfder yang suka dengan film bermutu atau TV Serials, yang satu ini jangan sampe dilewatkan..!! Coba aja episode 01, dijamin haus ketagihan..!!

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NARUTO SHIPPUUDEN MOVIE 6: ROAD TO NINJA (2013)

Tanggal Rilis : 2013
Jenis Film : Animation | Action
Diperankan Oleh : -

Ringkasan Cerita NARUTO SHIPPUUDEN MOVIE 6: ROAD TO NINJA (2013) :

Ten years ago, a gigantic demon beast known as the Nine-Tailed Demon Fox was released from its jinchuuriki by an unknown shinobi wearing a mask. The village of Konohagakure was close to destruction by the attack of the Nine-Tails, but the village was saved by its leader. Minato Namikaze and his wife Kushina Uzumaki—who was the jinchuuriki at the time of the attack—sealed away the demon inside their new born son: Naruto Uzumaki. However, this act of saving the village cost them their lives and they left the future of the ninja world to Naruto.

With the demon fox sealed away, things continued as normal. However, the peace of the village would not last long, for Pain, Konan, Itachi Uchiha, Kisame Hoshigaki, Sasori, Deidara, Hidan and Kakuzu—members of a dreaded shinobi group called the Akatsuki—attacked Konohagakure. Naruto narrowly manages to launch a counter-attack but why have these shinobi appeared when all of them were meant to have died? The mystery remains, but the shinobi are praised by heir families for completing such a dangerous mission. However, one of them who has never known the faces of his parents, Naruto, cannot help but feel lonely. At that exact time, suddenly, the masked man makes his appearance in Konoha. Naruto and his allies are both attacked by the man’s mysterious new doujutsu.

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State of the Union: The 5 Key Points of Soderbergh’s Speech

Steven Soderbergh’s state of cinema talk, delivered Saturday at the San Francisco International Film Festival, caused a big stir. Because he requested his remarks not be filmed, taped or transcribed — and because, of course, it inevitably was — information about the speech trickled down in dribs and drabs. What was initially colored as the kvetching of a director reiterating the timeless Hollywood battle between art and commerce has a lot more to chew on than initially reported. Five things to chew on from one of our smartest (ex?) directors’:

1.) “Art, in my view, is a very elegant problem-solving model.”

That explains a lot about Soderbergh’s filmography — famously eclectic in its subject matter, yet easily recognizable as the work of one mind. Some of the ways in which Soderbergh asserts himself aren’t universally pleasing, to say the least: the color-coded filters which separate one location/time from another (introduced in “Traffic,” taken to their logical extreme in “Contagion”) are as ugly as they are functional and have been known to turn former fans into haters.

But here’s a guy who’s approached disparate projects and genres and made them distinctively his own: in his latest hyper-productive stretch (“Contagion,” “Haywire,” “Magic Mike”), it would take only five seconds to ID the maker. Compare/contrast with a director like Ang Lee, who’s solved many problems — filming on water with a tiger on “Life of Pi,” mainstreaming gay anti-romance with “Brokeback Mountain” — yet still seems stolidly, insistently anonymous, both stylistically and thematically. Soderbergh’s films fixate on economic inequality, the visible symptoms of late capitalism at its worst, and what it’s like to track one story through multiple global locales, imposing a viewpoint through distinctive visual/editorial products.

2.) “When a studio is attempting to determine on a project-by-project basis what will work, instead of backing a talented filmmaker over the long haul, they’re actually increasing their chances of choosing wrong. Because in my view, in this business which is totally talent-driven, it’s about horses, not races.”

There’s a closer-to-home, non-sports analogy in the music industry. In the 2009 book “Appetite For Self-Destruction,” Steve Knopper makes the point that record companies once functioned on a model of signing a band, then letting them work the kinks out of their artistic system until they were ready to make music that would satisfy both them and the vast public, the prototypical example being R.E.M. That model collapsed eventually — Knopper devotes a few pages to Debbie Southwood-Smith, whose last act before being canned from Interscope was to sign TV On The Radio, who paid off long-haul after she’d been fired — but it’s not clear that the music industry’s benefitted from concentrating on short-term effects. Major labels also notoriously focused on a model in which the vast majority of albums would flop terribly, hemorrhaging money all over the place, but in which blockbuster records would more than make up the cost. That strategy isn’t surefire and can be costly, as when Universal Pictures lost $83 million for one quarter on the sole basis of “Battleship” bombing.

3.) “There’s the expense of putting a movie out, which is a big problem. Point of entry for a mainstream, wide-release movie: $30 million. That’s where you start. Now you add another 30 for overseas. Now you’ve got to remember, the exhibitors pay half of the gross, so to make that 60 back you need to gross 120. So you don’t even know what your movie is yet, and you’re already looking at 120.”

This is the part of the speech that got the most attention initially, and I’m not interested in disputing it: I’m not an industry reporter, nor do I have access to the kind of mind-numbing, soul-crushing info Soderbergh does, and I believe what he’s saying. However, there’s clearly one pocket of studio production that’s beaten the advertising cost odds, and that’s the micro-budget horror movie. Inspired by the success of “Paranormal Activity,” grungy little movies that rarely top the $5 million mark budgetarily are released all the time, and they work like gangbusters. It doesn’t matter if they’re terrible or audiences feel burned — as with last year’s “The Devil Inside” — because a good opening weekend is really all that matters. For whatever reason, these things sell themselves, and it’s an anomaly worth noting.

4.) “The international box office, which used to be 50% of revenue is now 70%.”

Industry people know this, but the general public doesn’t seem to get it, and it’s an important answer to a question frequently asked by frustrated multiplex audiences: “What is this? Why was this made?” Most Hollywood movies aren’t made for Americans at all: they’re made for international consumption by audiences whose domestic industries can’t afford the high-grade CGI and lavish, visible overspending we can. A mediocre blockbuster spectacle is still a spectacle: as Soderbergh observes, genres that travel best are “action-adventure, science fiction, fantasy, spectacle, some animation thrown in there.” (The only Hollywood movies intended pretty much solely for domestic consumption are most comedies and the ambiguously-named “urban” [read: black-audience-oriented] movie.) You’re not the target audience, you’re just the excuse.

5.) “…Pushing cinema out of mainstream movies.”

Soderbergh argued that cinema as he conceives it — art, in short, rather than naked commerce — can no longer come through the Hollywood system, which seems as true as ever at the moment. I’d suggest a corollary, which is the decline of the hired-hand craftsman. The “genius of the system” has often been paid tribute to, and from time to time directors lament that they can’t participate in an efficient production line. Recently, for example, as unlikely a director as Portugese arthouse terror Pedro Costa said he’d “like to have a system that grounds me.” Forget cinema: what’s been lost in Hollywood is an assembly-line that’s good at what it does, economical in doing so, and capable of matching directors who want nothing more than to be efficient at their jobs with appropriate material.

It’s striking that Soderbergh’s recent run is his attempt at being a one-man studio, tackling various forms of genre while keeping an eye on what he thinks mainstream audiences might like. The sheer amount of inefficiency and interference from start to finish, combined with toxic amounts of money, has ballooned significantly in the time Soderbergh’s entered the system, reducing the amount of space available for minor miracles of economical precision. One of the joys of film history is sifting through previously marginalized B-movies for examples of the undervalued craft; when the historians come for the Hollywood of the last decade, they’ll find almost nothing like that.

Categories: Features

Tags: Speech, State of the Cinema, Steven soderbergh, Vadim Rizov

Review: ‘Love Is All You Need’

The fact that her previous film (2010’s “In a Better World”) won the Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film ultimately has nothing to do with the fact that Danish director Susanne Bier has earned the benefit of the doubt. Over 20 years and across countless countries, Bier’s films have expressed a keen intelligence, borderless ambition, and an aggressive flair for high drama. While some would argue that Bier’s more self-serious work is plagued by portent and dubiously convenient plotting (her comedies, which are extremely successful in her home country, have engendered little critical attention abroad), it’s hard to deny that her even Bier’s least interesting efforts – like her lugubrious English-language debut, “Things We Lost in the Fire” – are alive with a rare urgency, as though her roving and confrontational camera were possessed by the story at hand. Cherry-picking key tenets of the Dogme 95 moment and inflating them with Technicolor emotion, Bier’s films pulse with purpose, demanding your attention even when they strain your interest.

In other words, when Susanne Bier makes a seemingly frivolous romantic comedy, you have to give it a fair shake. Even when that seemingly frivolous romantic comedy is titled “Love Is All You Need” (a result of the unfortunate but understandable decision to jettison the film’s original title, “The Bald Hairdresser”), and – at first blush – seems like a chilling combination between “Rachel Getting Married” and “Mamma Mia!,” with Bier at the helm you have no choice but to trust in the clarity of her vision and take the plunge.

Good news – the water’s fine. A warm and winsome movie that stretches the definition of a “romantic comedy” (it would be more accurate to call it a love story with laughter), “Love Is All You Need” is a refreshingly uncynical and surprisingly practical portrait of two people learning how to take life at face value and embrace the joy available to them.

As the film begins, we’re introduced to Ida (the brilliant Trine Dyrholm), a sweet but strong middle-aged woman who arrives home from her final chemotherapy treatment only to find her husband unrepentantly screwing a young blonde. To make matters worse, Ida is running late for her flight from Denmark to Italian coast, where she’ll be a guest at her daughter’s wedding. Meanwhile, across town, a grumpy and emotionally closed off business tycoon named Philip (Pierce Brosnan, who responds to the Danish dialogue in his usual Irish brogue) rejects the advances of his sexy young secretary because, well, he has nearly zero interest in other human beings. What love he does have is reserved for his son, who’s about to get married on the Italian coast. And you’ll never guess into whom Philip (literally) crashes in the airport parking lot before his flight…

Ironically, it’s during the familiar meet-cute that Bier first suggests her movie is interested in exploring deeper than what’s expected of such a fluffy premise. It’s common (or perhaps mandatory) for a rom-com couple to spar with one another before their antagonism gives way to the soul-sealing love that obviously lurks below, but Ida and Philip barely make it through five minutes of shared screen-time before they’ve taken their mutual disdain as far as it can go. They haven’t even arrived at the villa where their kids are getting married before they’ve seen right through one another, making more progress in one car ride than Katherine Heigl might in the span of 15 dresses.

By the time Ida and Philip meet up with their kids and say hi to the extended cast of characters who provide the film with its unusually rich texture (Bier regular Paprika Steen has a ton of fun as a sexed up cousin with an agenda, while distinctly nozzled “Gomorrah” star Ciro Petrone delivers an unexpectedly sweet performance as a local handyman), “Love is All You Need” has already busted the ceiling that’s usually imposed on films like this.

More to the point, there really aren’t all that many “films like this.” Sure, there’s a veritable sub-genre of movies about women “getting their groove back,” but the process by which Ida is seen reclaiming her life in the wake of her first brush with cancer is so startlingly organic and humane that it unfolds as more of a moving acceptance than a forced reawakening. This isn’t some “you go, girl!” story of a woman who emerges from crisis by realizing that she’s still got it, but rather the story of a woman who’s increasingly determined to love what she’s got left. Trine Dyrholm’s locates Ida as an understandably vulnerable person who nevertheless has no desire to be “saved.” Dyrholm’s wide eyes and delicate English threaten to confuse her for one of Lars von Trier’s holy women, but the actress is in such command of Ida’s grounded outlook that the character never feels on trial, but simply alive.

One especially telling scene finds Ida emerging fully nude from the ocean surf, her blonde wig absent from her head and the scar from her mastectomy on full display. As Bier herself observed during my conversation with her, it’s a scene that would have felt agonizingly obvious in a more heavy-handed film, but here – amidst the ridiculously sublime Italian scenery and the jovial merriment that suffuses the film like it’s the most sobering comedy Richard Curtis never made – it’s a moving reminder that Ida and the rest of these characters are responding to the wild scenarios of this madcap weekend, and not merely at their mercy. And while the lens through which we observe this scene suggests that, on a semantic level, this film might ultimately belong to Philip, it’s Ida that provides its beating heart and its gracious hope (Brosnan’s turn is excellent as well. I hesitate to suggest that the actor, who lost a spouse to cancer in real life, was especially empowered to sell the character’s catharsis because of his personal experience, but his performance proves that Brosnan still has his heart in the game, regardless of what he drew upon to deliver it).

“Love is All You Need” hardly reinvents the wheel, but that clearly wasn’t Bier’s intention. Irresistibly entertaining and beautiful to look at it, the film is pleasant at worst, and – at best – wisely defies its slapped-on American title, a warm reminder that love isn’t a solution so much as it’s a brilliant way of embracing life’s problems.

SCORE: 7.7 / 10

Categories: Reviews

Tags: Ciro Petrone, David Ehrlich, Love is All You Need, Pierce Brosnan, Review, Susanne Bier, Trine Dyrholm

Say Hello to the Freaky Japanese Version of Tony Stark, ‘Tetsuo: The Iron Man’

It’s safe to say that the name “Iron Man” has become synonymous with both superheroes and summer blockbusters. Over the past five years, Robert Downey, Jr.’s Tony Stark has headlined four of the biggest films in box office history, turning Iron Man into one of the most recognizable brands on Earth.

But for some film fans, hearing the name Iron Man conjures up a very different image. Instead of America’s beloved red-and-gold crimefighter bravely saving the world from super powered terror, they think of pounding industrial beats, shocking scenes of fetishized horror and a micro-budgeted black and white experimental film that revolutionized the world of cult cinema forever.

Move over, Tony Stark, because it’s time to take a look at “Tetsuo: The Iron Man.”

Based on his own student short films, “Tetsuo: The Iron Man” was the brainchild of Japanese auteur Shinya Tsukamoto. Filmed on less than a shoestring budget in 1988, “Tetsuo: The Iron Man,” which was Tsukamoto’s first feature length effort, stars a number of Tsukamoto’s friends and former classmates in a nearly psychotic exploration of the effects of modern technology on the human mind.

Or at least, that’s one interpretation of “Tetsuo: The Iron Man’s” mind-blowing imagery. Rightly compared to the weirdest works of David Cronenberg and David Lynch, the film’s plot is almost secondary to its visuals and music. Starting off with a look at a man known only as the Metal Fetishist, a guy (played by Tsukamoto himself) who gets his kicks surgically implanting hunks of metal into his own flesh, “Tetsuo: The Iron Man” takes a quick turn into left field when the man is nearly run over and killed by a typical Tokyo salaryman and his girlfriend.

The salaryman (Tomorowo Taguchi) then begins having a series of increasingly bizarre and disturbing dreams and encounters as his own body slowly transforms into a metallic monstrosity. With wires, gears and pistons jutting from his flesh, he finally faces off against the Metal Fetishist who has been haunting his nightmares. Instead of defeating him, though, they end up merging in an orgiastic battle scene that culminates with the duo, now one being, embarking on a rampage in an attempt to transform all Earth to their metallic worldview.

So that’s the “story.” But the main point of the movie is made through its unique style, which is half frenetic black-and-white dream sequences of people racing through Tokyo’s deserted streets while transforming into cyborg monstrosities and half pounding, industrial rhythms that get inside your head and stay there like a steam engine you can’t shut down. The result is like a long-form music video full of the creepiest imagery this side of a Tool concert.

Check out the trailer for a taste:

As this clip makes clear, Tskuamoto named his character the Metal Fetishist for a very good reason. If the movie is exploring man’s affair with technology, then Tsukamoto has no problem making that affair a very literal one.

Or in other words, this is a perfect example of the classic literary rule known as Chekov’s Giant Crotch Drill. If you introduce a giant crotch drill in act one, that crotch drill has to go off in act three. And it very much does in an encounter with the salaryman’s girlfriend that is a wee bit too intense for us to embed it here.

Which is part of the point of “Tetsuo: The Iron Man,” which doesn’t shy away from examining not just the sexuality of its characters, but the sexual politics inherent in the mechanization — and therefore equalization — of modern society. In one of the film’s most famous segments, the salaryman is pursued by a strange woman who is herself in the process of transforming into a metallic monster. At one point, as the ecstasy of transcending mere flesh consumes her, she gleefully detonates one of her breasts, showering both of them with blood.

We’re pretty sure you’re not going to see Pepper Potts do that in “Iron Man 3.”

Though “Tetsuo: The Iron Man” hit Japanese theaters in 1989, it wasn’t until several years later that it finally arrived in limited release in America. Over the course of the past decade, the film’s cult status has grown, as have the number of unsuspecting viewers who have stumbled upon it and ended up curling into the fetal position while wondering wtf just happened.

That’s because, unlike “Iron Man 3,” “Tetuso: The Iron Man” most definitely isn’t intended for mainstream audiences. But if you find experimental cinema interesting and want a first hand look at what many critics consider to be the pinnacle of cyberpunk film, you owe it to yourself to check it out.

After all, an open, inquisitive mind is what really makes Tony Stark a superhero, isn’t it?

Categories: Features

Tags: Iron man, Iron Man 3, Shinya Tsukamoto, Tetsuo: The Iron Man