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Talking with Chloe Grace Moretz of IF I STAY

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At the tender young age of 12, Chloe Grace Moretz suited up in purple spandex and dropped profanities like a pirate’s parrot. Offensive to some and provocative to all, her role as Hit-Girl exposed her to the world in a big way and it was a career moved that has since paid off ten-fold. She’s since starred in films such as Martin Scorsese‘s Hugo, the American horror remake of Let the Right One In, Let Me In, Marc Webb‘s beloved indie flick (500) Days of Summer, Kimberly Peirce‘s remake of Carrie, Tim Burton‘s Dark Shadows and just this year filmed Laggies under Lynn Shelton with Keira Knightley. I would invite you to find a younger actor alive today who’s worked with such big names, but it wouldn’t be worth you time. You simply couldn’t.

 

Unfortunately, Moretz’s latest effort, an adaptation of Gayle Forman‘s popular teenage trag-mance (tragic romance) If I Stay, is a total miff. Nevertheless, Chloe had a chance to talk through her career and how she’s gracefully transformed from a little vitriol-spitting hero into a talented young woman with a long career in front of her. 

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First off, let’s start with the cello. Your characters plays the cello in the movie, it’s an “instrumental” part of her character. Obviously there’s a little bit of movie magic going on with you actually playing it, unless you’re really that killer at the cello….

Chloe Moretz: No.

So talk a little bit about that. Do you actually play any cello? Do you play any other instruments?

CM: Pretty much, I trained for about seven months on the cello, to kind of learn it, and understand it. The biggest part of it was the emotionality, because I couldn’t learn that intricate of an instrument that quickly, so the number one was always learning the emotionality of it.

The passion behind it.

CM: Yeah, the passion behind it, and how it kind of takes over your entire body, as you play the cello. You become one.

So, are there any complete pieces that you can play?

CM: No. I had it in my hands, and I learned a couple of Bach pieces, and stuff like that, but as I was saying, I could get down the physicality of it, but the sound that was coming out of it was pretty horrific.

Fake it until you make it, if you will. It definitely looks like you’re ripping on it, so that’s good.

CM: That’s because they did a little bit of digital face replacement. My double’s sick!

You’ve worked with some great directors, so far. You’re only seventeen years old and you’ve worked with Scorsese, Tim Burton, Matt Reeves, Matthew Vaugh, Marc Webb etc. Has there ever been a moment when you’re going to one of those meetings, and you meet a movie legend like Martin Scorsese, and you are starstruck and taken aback?

CM: I think, I kind of look at it now where I’m kind of sad that I did that, that I did ‘Hugo’ when I was thirteen, because I had no clue. I had no idea what it meant to work with Martin Scorsese. It wasn’t like that, I understood it, but I didn’t UNDERSTAND it, you know what I mean? I look at him now, and I see him again, and I’m like “Oh my god! You’re in front of me, and I’m talking to you!” And then I remember, we made a movie together for like ten months. I know you really well. It’s funny, I just wish that I had done it when I was a little bit older, so I could comprehend what it meant.

Speaking of being a little bit older, rather a little bit younger, your vulgar introduction to the world was in “Hit Girl” in Kick Ass. I’m wondering, what did that do to the trajectory of your career, starting off in such a controversial way?

CM: Honestly, I think it helped me, because I didn’t start off playing the little sister, I didn’t start off playing the little kid. So no one ever had, in their mind’s eye, things like, “Little Baby Chloe”, it was more like adult Chloe. My transition into being more of an adult actor hasn’t been as hard for me as some, who do Disney and everything else. It’s a bit more intricate for them to have to try to make that swift change from child to adult.

And what kind of personal impact has this had on you, compared to some of your peers and contemporaries, around your same age?

CM: I mean, no personal impact, I think it’s just kind of helped my career a little bit. Personally, I’m the same kid. Maybe I’m a little bit less sheltered than probably a little bit more normal kid…

Right, because you don’t have to make that shiny, glimmery transition to adulthood.

CM: I don’t have to lie, yeah.

At this point in your career, you’ve done a lot of strong work, but you haven’t been in any big franchises, as of yet.

CM: No, not until Fifth Wave starts! I’m actually starting my next franchise on September 20th, called The Fifth Wave.

The Fifth Wave, can you tell me a little bit about that?

CM: It’s Rick Yancey’s new trilogy. Basically, it’s based on this alien invasion, and there’s this girl who’s trying to find her brother, to rekindle her life.

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Weekly Review 50: INDIGO, TRANS4MERS, IDA, 13, THE GOOD

by Posted in Weekly Review Tagged , , , , ,

Weekly Review

It’s been more than two weeks since our last outing at the Weekly Review outpost so I’ve got a bit to catch up on. At the theater, I gobbled up Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Into the Storm, The Giver and Love is Strange (review soon). Since most of the television shows I watch are off air for the summer season, I’ve had a dive into some 2014 films that had slipped under the cracks. I know it seems funny to consider Transformers: Age of Extinction amongst the “forgotten few” but it’s one I missed the screening of that took me a long time to get around to. Three hours of robokake is quite a commitment. Without further adieu, let’s dive in and do some Weekly Review.

Mood Indigo (2014)

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Michel Gondry outdoes himself with Mood Indigo. His latest breeze-fest is so wrecklessly bizarre and aggressively strange that the initial charm soon turns to cutesiness and wears off quickly. Without characters that feel as if they’re living, breathing human beings, Gondry’s film is a tiring exploration of how far an audience will tolerate strangeness for the sake of strangeness. Another misfire from a man full of misfires, Mood Indigo is a Rufus Wainwright song; intriguing at first but quickly tiresome. (C)

Transformers: Age of Extinction (2014)

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A scrabble of CG set pieces and insanely overwrought characterization, Transformers: Age of Extinction is Bay at his best and worst. The shorts are shorter, the explosions louder, the robots more robotic. American flags wave in the background for no reason whatsoever. What’s so amazing is the fact that at 165 minutes, a movie overstuffed with eardrum-shattering soundsplosions and Optimus Prime whacking enemies with a massive broadsword threatens to put you to sleep. Further, it fails to reach the technical heights of Bay’s last installment, especially considering that the celebrated Dinobots don’t come into play until a good two hours after the movie starts. (D+)

Ida (2014)

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Ida has a lot going for it: Pawel Pawlikowski stepping back into the limelight; nuanced performances from leads Agata Trzebuchowska and Agata Kulesza; a thoughtful, meditative soul; crisp, clean black-and-white cinematography from Lukasz Zal; and historical import. Pawlikowski’s film follows orphan Anna, who is about to take her vows. Before she does, her Mother Superior urges her to discover her roots, upon which Anna discovers that not only is she Jewish but her family was murdered in the Holocaust. Ida is not always an easy film but it’s potent and powerful, rife with themes of absolution and guilt. (B)

13 Sins (2014)

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A clever concept undone by piss poor acting, 13 Sins imagines a world in which a powerful group of one percenters enlist everyday nobodies to participate in a twisted game. The game is simple; complete a given task and you win money. The first task is to kill a fly ($1000). The second, to eat it ($3500). As you can imagine, as the dollar signs skyrocket, so do the heinousness of any given assignment. It’s a less clever version of E.L. Katz‘s wonderful Cheap Thrills and, as mentioned, suffers greatly from a cast performing at a low bar. Devon Graye in particular is almost offensively bad, especially considering he’s playing a special needs character more inspired by Simple Jack than Rain Man. (C-)

The Good, The Bad, the Weird (2008)

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This is how you remake a film: rip its beating heart out, slam it onto a new continent, whitewash it with different cultural meaning and pump it full of adrenaline. Gorgeously photographed and inlaid with decadent set designs, The Good, The Bad, The Weird takes Sergio Leone‘s magnum opus out of Spain and plants it in Manchuria with a hard-R rating. It’s a wacky take on a classic that’s liberal with its reinvention but homages in ample doses. The skippy score and whack ado performance from Kang-ho Song makes it a rollicking good time and a film worth seeking out and slurping up. (A-)

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Out in Theaters: THE GIVER

by Posted in Out in Theaters Tagged , , , , , , , , , , 31 Comments

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18 years ago, Jeff Bridges directed a BetaMax version of The Giver. It was a lo-fi test run starring his father, Lloyd Bridges, photographed by brother Casey Bridges and narrated by Bud Court (Harold and Maude). It never made it to market – or outside the Bridge’s living room for that matter – but as it yellowed in a storage box somewhere, Bridges has since been trying to get The Giver made on his own terms.

Says Bridges, “Wanting to direct it myself, I had a certain vision of how it would go and I was in love with the book so I wanted to put that onscreen exactly how it was.” With Bridges stepping into the role that he always saw his own father in, he has helped contribute to a movie version of Lois Lowry‘s Newbury Award-winning story that preserves the spirit of the book; a baleful, cautionary tale of what we lose when equality reigns supreme.

Phillip Noyce‘s (Patriot Games) adaptation of The Giver begins in picturesque black-and-white. Like a cold-pressed “Harrison Bergeron”, society has been sanitized of all that makes us different. Everyone’s house is the same size and layout, every Year Nine gets a futurist, Walmart knock-off looking bike. Jobs are assigned just as partners are. The time for hyperbole has ended; precision of language is a must. The world of The Giver has been scrubbed of color because that might tend towards favoritism. The Communities are lands without high and lows, without love and hate. It’s a kingdom of meh.

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Enter Jonas, a mild-mannered Year Twelve. He’s supposedly a potpourri of attributes, but he comes off just as bland as everyone else in this axenic town. The only thing that separates him from the quieted rabble is his persisting sense of wonder. He’s a daydreamer even in a world sanitized of dreams. In a land where being different is to be outcast, he’s a square-circle peg in a circle-square hole. His one degree of difference  is just enough to tip off the higher ups that he’s not quite fit for this rigid society of yay-sayers and apologists.  

Brenton Thwaites (Oculus) is an older Jonas than you might remember but he handles the material aptly. He’s a little stare-heavy and a touch too wholesome but Thwaites mostly does the role justice, offering a sacrificial character who’s capable of both great mental strength and weakness. At his graduation – er Ceremony of the Twelves – Jonas sees his peers assigned roles one at a time. His good friend Fiona (Odeya Rush) is assigned to be a Nurturer. His other mate Asher (Cameron Monaghan) is a drone pilot. Note, neither are good actors in the slightest.

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As the roll drifts to Jonas, it skips past him, continuing onto the next classmate down the line. He finds himself briefly without an assignment before the Chief Elder (Streep) turns to him. Between a chop of Razorclam bangs that makes Elisabeth Moss’ motley doo on the first season of Mad Men look like a piece of high art, Meryl Steep is a rhadamanthine czar of the harshest order. She’s a dubious politician, a low-spoken dictator; a less shouty Shitler. With a mop that would date Kim Jong-un’s, she’s quietly terrifying. It’s her way or the “highway.” Remember though, there are no highways in the Communities, just wittle, itty, bitty injections that “release” you from society. 

After a thudding zinger that would be at home in a Phil Dunphy Real Estate Conference (“You’re my favorite group of realtors, but I must admit, I say that to every one of them”), Elder Streep assigns Jonas the mysterious and exalted position of Receiver of Memories. In a civilization where every house looks the same, there is one that juts out like a sore thumb, lying on the edge of the map, and that’s where Jonas’ assignment has him headed.

Here, he meets the elder Receiver of Memories (Bridges), a man who single-handedly is responsible for the collective memories of the past in the hopes that he’ll be able to advice Streep and her Elder cohorts in matters we know not of. He’s a somber hermit, a man burdened with all the anguish of history and gifted with all its joys. As he passes along these memories to Jonas, the good and the bad, he loses his old moniker and becomes The Giver.

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Though Noyce abandons some of the more morally tricky areas of Lowry’s novel – the interesting discussion of what has become of sex and reproduction has been all but left out – he never defames the material on which his film is based. In fact, much of Noyce’s interpretation of Lowry’s corrosive prose puts images to verbal abstractions in powerful and poignant strokes. As The Giver waxes on love, war, happiness, loss, those ideas waft from the screen in healthy torrents. He pummels us with effigies of joy, strangles us with imagery of tragedy. It’s at once chessy and  breathless and, by and large, works really well. Noyce’s visual montages – though obnoxiously shuddery – seek to remind us of the power of life, the yin and the yang that is having and losing, and might even conjure up a spare tear.

As Bridges gives a quietly devastating performance as the eponymous character, The Giver tip-toes to the finish as an occasionally whopping crowd-pleaser. Noyce’s is a direly decorated dystopia sans the violence and romance of similarly themed Young Adult fare (and it’s only a brusk 93 minutes.) Noyce offers drab aestetics and moral battles in lieu of the high stakes “Do or die” of Divergent and The Hunger Games. His Giver relies on ideas prevailing over pretty pictures, meaningless battles and fluffy romances. Where other films shout, The Giver whispers. It’s not a perfect adaptation of Lowry’s provocative novel but it is boldly faithful; a mostly thoughtful vision of utopia gone awry.

B-

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Talking With Charlie McDowell of THE ONE I LOVE

by Posted in Interviews Tagged , , ,

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A little bit uncomfortable in his armchair and quite obviously neurotic, Charlie McDowell may have been overshadowed by Mark Duplass, the star of his film The One I Love, but there was something to Duplass’ confidence in the man that made him stand taller, that made his shoulders broaden. For a first time director, working with established talent like Duplass, Elizabeth Moss (Mad Men) and Ted Danson is not always an easy task, especially for a piece as minimalist and ambitious as The One I Love and yet McDowell managed to massage all the limited resources at his command to his complete and total advantage, delivering one of the most surprise hits of the year.

 

I spoke with Charlie about working with Mark and Elizabeth and how their confidence in him kept things running smooth. And though our conversation was brief, it gave a glimpse into the mind of a might-be auteur filmmaker. One thing is clear, The One I Love is a must-see and I can’t wait to see what he delivers next.

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Charlie, I really like the minimalism that you work with on this set. You’re really only working with two people. Danson’s got a scene but it’s all about Mark and Elizabeth. Did you end up running into any issues where you were like, “Wow, this is actually a lot more challenging just working with only these two people?”

Charlie McDowell: I think we really thought about that before making the movie, so it wasn’t something where we got on set are were like, “Shit…” But it was a mixture of a bunch of things. A lot of discussions between Mark and Lizzy about character stuff and sort of where they go and how they arc. And then for me, the visual side to it, the property, I sort of viewed as its own character and really treated it that way. I made sure I had a visual plan of how this film arced visually. It was always a concern of how do we keep the audience’s attention and keep them moving forward and trying to figure out what’s going on. As long as we were all aware of that in the plotting standpoint and the character standpoint then we felt pretty good about where we were going with it.

When you were doing scenes that involve two Marks or two Elizabeths, were you shooting that with extras and then you would go in and fill it in?

CM: [Redacted] … For a fairly low-budget movie we had a shit-ton of effects.

Tell me what it was like working with the both Elizabeth and Mark?

CM: We were incredibly lucky to have Lizzy, especially for me as a first-time director. To have both Lizzy and Mark as two of the most collaborative, giving people, I was just so lucky and blessed to have them as my team. Specifically Lizzy, it was really funny— she was down to play games and have fun with the crew and laugh— and then the second I yelled “Action” it was like- [claps] – snapped right into the character. It was almost sort of jarring for me because, I almost wasn’t prepared. I couldn’t snap in as a director quick enough. We were laughing and joking and then we were rolling and “Action” and just zones in and those big blue eyes. “Oh my god.” She’s been doing it for a while and she just has that organic, natural, God-given talent.

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Talking With Mark Duplass of THE ONE I LOVE, CREEP, and THE LEAGUE

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Mark Duplass threw his hat into the entertainment mix as a founder of the mumblecore movement before joining up with FX‘s the surprise hit tv show, The League. Since then, he’s associated with filmmakers big and small, working on Oscar nominated films (Zero Dark Thirty) and indie gems (Safety Not Guaranteed) alike. This year, Duplass has been seen on the silver screen in Creep, Tammy, and The One I Love and on television in The League, The Mindy Project and Togetherness. If you’ve watched a screen at some point, it’s likely you’ve seen the man’s face. So why is he so worried about burning out or becoming irrelevant?

 

Join me as I talk with Mark in detail about Creep, The One I Love and The League about a gamut of what his career means and where he thinks it may be going.

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One of the things I really like about the film was the concept really reminded me of a Twilight Zone episode from way back in the days. Mark, I was wondering when you are creating your characters for this, did you go about it thinking like, “Ok, these guys are both Ethan. There’s one more kind of normal version and then the more idyllic version” or did you approach it as if they were two entirely separate characters?

Mark Duplass: I don’t want to get too much into the specifics because we’re really trying not to spoil the plot- the fact that there are two characters. We watch people watch this movie- those who know that enjoy it a lot less than those who don’t know it. So we are going to try and hold that information, but I will say, as an actor this was a very new type of role for me. Part of this is something I’m very comfortable with and done a lot of, being in sort of like fumbley rom-com mode I feel good- I know what to do there. And then there’s another side of this that I’ve never really done before. So it was at once a little scary doing that but at the same time I did have one foot in the door that I understood.

Mark, you’re obviously used to seeing yourself on screen, but was it like a somewhat new experience being like, “That’s really weird- two of me up there!”

MD: Yeah. It’s interesting when you’re basically approaching a character that has all of these different facets to it. Essentially you are going to be playing something that is very much not like you, you know? Sometimes you approach a role and you’re like, “I’m going to play myself. I’m going to do a very good version of myself in this and I’ll do well.” And I always feel very comfortable watching myself do that. In a movie like “Creep”, which is also here at the festival, it’s uncomfortable for me to watch that. In a movie like “The One I Love,” there are things I do in the film that seem very strange to me- but it’s always interesting to watch.

Can you talk a little bit about what it was like working with Elizabeth and how you built your chemistry together?

MD: It is incredible how she can click in like that. We were a big group of collaborators. There was a core group: Mel Eslyn, our producer that lives in Seattle, and me and Charlie and Justin, our writer, and Lizzy. I would say we were probably the five core team of really getting the thing going; obviously the whole crew was important. Lizzy is first and foremost an actress and very much started that way, but then by day two, by day three, by day four- as we’re discussing character and improvising a lot of things – she started to turn much more into a filmmaker and started to become aware of the filmmaking process and became a co-filmmaker with us. I, on the other hand, I’m always half filmmaker, half actor, started to feel much more confident with Charlie, a first time director. By day one I was like, “Oh, he knows what he’s doing” so then I could start to recede a little bit more to become more clearly an actor in the movie.

Speaking of that confidence with Charlie, what was it about the project or the script or his pitch that gave you the confidence in him?

MD: There was no pitch. We built it together. Really the what it was, I just go on instinct, and sometimes I get screwed because of that, but I really liked him a lot personally, I thought he was really smart, I thought it was really sensitive, was right for this kind of material. We share a sense of humor. I find that those things normally tend to work out, but you don’t know until day one. I had a sense by watching how much he had prepped and seeing the storyboards and seeing things, I was like, “Oh, I think this is going to go well!” Still you don’t know. And our first day went well. “Alright, we’re good.”

That seems to be a similar through-line with your other work, say with Patrick Brice with “Creep”. I spoke with him briefly at SXSW and he was talking about how the two of you collaborated to build the story out. Can you juxtapose that process with this?

MD: Not completely dissimilar, though I would say this film, “The One I Love” was intensely prepped with storyboards. Charlie had every shot in his mind visually and knew how to tell that story. In “Creep”, Patrick and I basically stumbled out of a van stoned and tried to find a movie with an interesting idea and fell into something that was interesting but only half-baked. And then we kept going back and reshooting and testing and reshooting and testing and reshooting, and crafting this movie as we went along. “The One I Love” was built to be executed in a 15 day shoot. “Creep” was an arts and crafts project that evolved slowly through mistakes.

In that evolution process that was “Creep” — where did you tap into the character of Josef?

MD: He was always there. We always knew that at the end of the day, when you come to see “Creep” which is being called a “found-footage horror movie” you’re coming to see a different version of that— you’re coming to see a movie about a very odd Craigslist encounter. That is, a version of: what does it mean when you show up to buy a toaster oven from some stranger, and you walk into their house and you just trust that everything is going to be ok- and they start talking to you about their ex-wife and their physical space is a little bit close and things feel weird- but you don’t leave for some reason. We wanted to examine that very dynamic and take and wring it for everything that it was worth. The more we tested the movie, the more we shot, the more we really wanted to go down the wormhole. Everybody was saying, “Go down the wormhole- we want to see how far you can go.” And that’s what we did.

Was that a chronological process where the footage that we see at the beginning of the film- the idea wasn’t fully formed yet? You didn’t quite know where the shots were going?

MD: Each time we went up we would change the middle, we would change the ending, we would change the front. Because the found-footage form is so easy to shoot and so cheap and fun, you can afford to just keep throwing out footage- to keep making new footage because we’re a small, tight group.

You say easy to film. By easy I am assuming that you mean—

MD: —Cheap.

Yes, exactly, but what were some of the hardest things about having to be in that deep, creepy, eerie character and yet riffing for so long within that?

MD: When you watch “Creep” you’ll see. A lot of the movie is on me to try and keep the movie afloat and keep it buoyed, and that made me nervous— I was worried it would look indulgent. There’s also a big challenge to have credibility in a found-footage movie. To keep your conceit strong— “Why is this camera on?” We felt very strongly about keeping that airtight the whole time. From a purely macro-perspective, why does the world need another found-footage horror movie? There are so many, so I felt a responsibility to a certain degree to offer something new that has some genuine laughs and genuine different kinds of feelings inside of that movie. The way I describe it, it’s like every movement— this sounds pretentious but I’m going to try and make it not pretentious— every movement, whether it is art or music or something, it maxes itself out and then it has to reset. Right? You watch painting and it goes from crazy and then all of a sudden some guy is just putting a dot in the middle of the canvas and keeping it simple. “Creep” is an attempt to reset the bar on found-footage horror genre which has gotten so crazy with sound design and craziness— let’s just strip all of that away and go back to the basics. Unsettling human behavior. And that’s what we try to do.

Yeah, very effective. I really enjoyed it. I really enjoyed your performance within it, too—

MD: Thanks man!

—especially for something within a genre that’s not known for performance.

MD: I’m going to get an Oscar—

Oh, I’m fully expecting it. Speaking of potentially getting an Oscar, but obviously you have a lot on your plate. You’re doing writing, directing, producing, acting and not only within the films but also in the world of television. Which of those mediums do you think— I know that obviously you’d like to do all of them— but which do you think speaks most to your personal brand of creative process?

MD: I think feel most comfortable and confident curating a small group of people and going out to make a piece of art like “The Only I Love” and like “Creep”. It’s my comfort zone. It’s what I love. I love that Charlie was frustrated making the movie and then we get to do this awesome thing together. It’s his first movie, I could feel his excitement. It affects me and keeps me excited, so I win the most on that process. That being said, my HBO show has been one of the more creative filming processes I’ve had where someone’s given me money to make something and they’re not- they don’t have their hand up my ass the whole time. They’re really being supportive to make exactly the kind of art I want to make. That has been great and if they want to keep making seasons, I’m going to keep making them!

You’ve done a lot of small independent stuff but then you also dipped your toe into some more bigger budget things like “Zero Dark Thirty” or “Parkland” and yet you keep coming back to doing these smaller projects. Is that due to your proclivity for doing things in a small group and the freedom that independent film affords?

MD: Yeah, both actually. Part of it is the freedom but part of it is the impatience I have. I don’t want to write a script that costs 30 million dollars to make because I know it’s probably going to take me five years to get it made in order to get al l of those elements together. I would so much rather call Charlie and be like, “You got a window? Let’s throw something together. You’ve got three months, let’s go do it!” It’s impatient, but again, there is a vitality to it. I was a really rebellious kid, I hate authority, I always have- and this feeling that we’re doing it our own way in our renegade way, that keeps me vital. I’m terrified of burning out or becoming irrelevant. Some of my favorite filmmakers, they make great films for 10 years and then all of a sudden they are just gone. And I think staying around first time filmmakers, keeping it cheap, carrying lights— I think that kind of stuff keeps you relevant.

My readers would hate me if I didn’t bring up “The League.”

MD: Yes! Season 6! I start shooting in 4 weeks.

You guys also just locked down another season as well?

MD: We actually did five and six, the two together. Five already aired, six is our next one, the future beyond that? God knows what will happen.

In terms of that future, obviously you’ve had a bit of unexpected success—

MD: —totally! It’s the first time I ever did it!

And who doesn’t love that show? In terms of your chemistry with the other performers, can you talk a little bit about how that has changed over the season besides what we can obviously see on the screen?

MD: I’ll tell you what has been interesting— we’re all very, very close; we’re like cousins now, we’re like family. As we started to get closer, it made it harder for us to start to insult each other as we do on the show—

And yet you insult each other more and more—

MD: —but now season 4 clicked in, we really feel like family, the chemistry is—we know we like each other, nothing we can do or say can hurt it. So now we have the utmost freedom to just be despicable. So, it’s in the right spot right now.

If you did have the option to continue the show, if popularity stays where it is, and demand is up— do you see yourself wanting to continue doing this for years and years?

MD: I love going to work with those people. I love being able to improvise.  And quite honestly that show affords me the ability to do what we do, making these little movies, so it is a great scenario in that realm. Will it be funny to watch me do that in my late 50’s? I can’t guarantee that. It might be a little sad, it might be great. Who knows. We’ll see.

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A Definitive, Indisputable, Unarguable Ranking of the Coen Bro’s Films

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Ethan and Joel Coen have been making movies since 1984. And not just your run-of-the-mill, “here’s another one” kind of movie. Thoughtful, delicately constructed masterworks. One after another. I truly think it’s fair to say that they don’t have a bad movie in the bunch, which makes the task of ranking them ever the more difficult. Each of their films have something in them to love; something unique worthy of cherishing. Be it a character, a stylish approach or brisk, bright bursts of comedy, they’re all bursting at the seams with life. In an attempt to parse out the differences though, it becomes clear just how united the Coen’s filmography is, even though at first glance, that couldn’t seem less the case. Read More

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Out in Theaters: TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA TURTLES

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Like eating an entire pepperoni pizza to yourself, Jonathan Liebesman‘s Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles is an exercise in corpulent gluttony. The jocular quips drip just as much cheese as the pizzas they scarf. An unnaturally meretricious Megan Fox oozes virginal sex like fat from a pepperoni. The CG eye-candy glistens like glitter on a stripper. But like that greasy, calorie bomb of a meatlover’s pizza in the wreckage of a hangover, it works. The solitary fart joke even lands.

Like Norville Barnes, people have insisted this effort is, you know, for the kids, but I’m not entirely convinced. Firstly, TMNT rides in on the parent-frightening PG-13 wave, even though the violence is inconsequential and entirely bloodless. And involves turtles. Add to that the fact that a good spell of the humor riffs around a few hardly risible rapey jokes and the fact that one of the turtles courts an unrequited sexual obsession with Fox’s April O’Neill. From this we can pretty much conclude this isn’t solely intended for the kids. Unless they’re really into rape jokes now.

Continuing on that note…WAIT WHAT?! Are you telling me that not one but two of the characters (Will Arnett, shame on you) actively promulgate the fact that they want to lay a bone down on our pea-brained female protagonist? Even though she’s more 6th grade science fair student here than voluptuous femme fatale? Yes. And yes. Hmmm, I think I might be talking myself out of semi-liking this movie.

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But I can admit up front that this was never a movie crafted with me in mind, making the fact that I found myself under the spell of a fair many turtle-chortles all the more miraculous. Not with the rapey stuff though. That’s still pretty weird.

In lieu of turtles forcing themselves on supple female jokes, what does actually work is the brothers themselves. Hell, why not throw that into the catalogue of adjectives to precede the word turtle: Teenage Mutant Ninja Brother Turtles! Because when you really break it down, the defining feature of this film adaption is the familial aspect of it. That and bulletproof shells.  

I’m getting ahead of myself and thinking it’s probably time to actually break down the plot, as if that’s really a requirement for a movie called Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Fox is April O’Neil, a low rent reporter with stars in her eyes. She wants the big stories. It’s Pulitzer or bust. Concurrently, she’s straight up bummed when she gets assigned news stories that have her bouncing on trampolines for the latest fitness craze. As if that’s a coincidence.

When she gets wind of a local terrorist group known as the “Foot Clan”, April takes matters into her own hands and decides to investigate Watergate style. Minutes later, she’s discovered the existence of the shell-bound ninjas. Soon after that, she realizes they’re the product of her own dead father’s experiment. Minds are blown.

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As April cohorts with the turts, the judiciously evil Eric Sacks (William Fichtner) schemes with the blatantly bad, full metal jacketed Shredder (Tohoru Masamune). Their plan, world domination. Their strategy, does it really matter?

Step one: poison city. Step two: everyone’s a leper. Step three: sell cure for ONE MILLION DOLLARS! (Pinky to lip). It may be Doctor Evil-level silliness but, let’s be very clear here, Shredder is confirmed BA. The guy has a smattering of swords that he shoots out like they’re Spiderman goo and then sucks back up magnetically. If I may quote Jesse Pinkman, “Magnets bitch!!” It makes for some pretty geeky nerdgasms. Especially when everything is all fuzzy and scrambled.

Liebesman’s scenery is draped with clumpy snow, which not only got me excited for next year’s skiing season but set the table for some exquisite “high” stakes action sequences. As the set pieces comes to life, the cameras zip around like on a Nimbus 2000, keeping things hectic, fluid and fun. Though the Turtles keep their weapons mostly holstered, Liebesman whips his out like a kid leaving summer camp. His touch is perfectly puerile, his tone nefariously juvenile.

As TMNT rips to a rather forecasted conclusion, it’s quite clear that Liebesman’s goal has been accomplished. His film is a puckering cherry bomb. But rather than blow up in his face, it erupts in the toilet. Us feckless few snicker. His film is crapulously inconsequential. It’s the epitome of dumb summer movie. And it pulls in at under an hour and 45 minutes. For that alone, it’s way better than the latest Transformers flick.

C

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Out in Theaters: INTO THE STORM

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Into the Storm encounters a litany of problems right from the get-go, many of which focus around the complete lack of talent in the acting department. Storm‘s stable of actors consist primarily of those that popular cable shows have chewed up and spit out, including The Walking Dead‘s Sarah Wayne Callies, Friday Night Light‘s Jeremy Sumpter, Veep‘s Matt Walsh and iCarly‘s Nathan Kress. Each bring their own unique ineptness to the table, failing to gel together as a cohesive cast even on the most basic of levels whilst embodying characters who we hope to see offed from the very moment we encounter them. This assembly is quite literally a wind tunnel of talent; a crew that raises the bar for the “Worst Acting of the Year” award higher than a tornado peak and drops it on its head. The scariest moment is realizing that it’s going to last for 89 minutes; the most disturbing, that all these people have careers.

Director Steven Quale and his team of effects “specialists” conjure up a series of tornadoes that make 1996’s Twister look cutting edge. Add to that the complete and utter lack of internal logic of the film – especially it comes to the potency of any given twister (a smallish ‘nado is able to suck bystanders off their feet from 100 yards away whilst one about a mile wide that tosses 747s like they’re toothpicks cannot)  – and you have a movie that can barely stand on its own two feet even on dry land.

The film starts with a groan as Donnie (Max Deacon) introduces us to his autocratic father (Richard Armitage) and swoop-bangs of a brother, Trey (Kress) in inglorious “found footage” style. You see, he’s making a time capsule to look back on in 25 years because nostalgia and fuck you. It’s an obvious way to establish the mechanics of the film but goes on to become an overbearing, embarrassing ploy to dish out concocted melodrama and false tension. Characters dish on “discovering” the real meaning of life after the disaster has had its way with them; they ooze over the importance of coming together. It makes for trumped up, on-the-nose Americana hooah. Even the ripped up flags wave in the background.

Quale spends the first twenty-odd minutes introducing us to an assemblage of the most obnoxious people ever to inhabit the lands once known as the Louisiana Purchase. There’s the techie dweeb who can’t act, the helplessly love interest who can’t act, the nosy brother who can’t act, the overbearing dad who can’t act, the stubborn principal who can’t act, the noxious storm chaser who can’t act, the cowardly cameraman who can’t act, the four-wheelin’ rednecks who can’t act and the grumbling scientist who can’t act. Unfortunately, we only get to see one sucked into a firenado.

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The plot is as simple as “Some say there’s a storm comin’, some say it’s already here.” When two storm fronts converge into one superstorm, Into the Storm becomes the Perfect Storm on land. It’s Syfy’s Shartnado. Five minutes in, a friend turned to me and asked if this was made to go straight to RedBox. Somehow, it escaped that fate. Somehow…

Perhaps the most miraculously bad portion of the film lies within the simple fact that nothing and no-one makes a lick of sense. In the midst of this small town, middle-of-nowhere cornburbia, an airfield the size of LAX materializes just so Quale can throw a baker’s dozen 747s through the air. The vice principal of the school has literally no idea how to navigate the small town he’s lived in for an innumerable amount of years. Characters ask if everyone’s ok even after literally watching town’s folk sucked into the maw of a viperous cyclone.

The grievances go on. Professionals stare down tornadoes ripping towards them without second guessing the imminent danger they’re in. A school bus full of children are evacuated into a sewer drain to inexplicably disappear a scene later. Characters disappear and reappear at the convenience of the story inventions like they’re Neo zipping through the Matrix. It’s as if the script (obviously written on a cocktail napkin or two) got blown away with the passing wind. How else to explain this logical shit storm?

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If there is a saving grace to Into the Storm (and I’m almost willing to admit that there is), it’s that it contains some of the most hysterical unintentional comedy of the year. None of the intended jokes land but when Quale tones it down for a tearful confession or lets his characters bicker over who’s to blame for another character’s demise and then quickly has them console each other, the belly laughs come a’rolling out. It’s the movie equivalent of a dog shitting in your dockers; it’s so accidentally funny that you can’t help but want to scruff its hair and forgive it immediately.

Looking over Quale’s resume, it’s really no shocker that he served up such a trash heap of an experience, considering he only has super-sequel Final Destination 5 to his name. That being the case though, I would expect a little more invention in the “kills” department. I think we can all agree that the firenado was appropriately daffy (and a suiting end for a character who was fifty shades of fey) but that’s really all Quale offers up for human sacrifice. No-one gets ripped to shreds by the sheer power of wind? No knifenados? Wa’ happened?

Instead of satisfying our bloodlust, Quale dumps out a sludge of over-the-top twisters that would only look at home on the Syfy channel. As if that will make up for it. The only footage we’re really intended to pay attention to are those shot from behind character’s shoulders as they play chicken with the impending deathwind. With the exception of one or two scenes, it’s as visually interesting as a fan on its highest setting. It’s as exciting as rolling your car window down.

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By the third act, Quale beckons forth a superstorm so girthy and otherworldly that I fully expected the perfunctory Weather Channel newscaster to spew, “My god. This one’s ten miles wide with wind speeds of up to a million!!” Taking a cue from the pastures upon pastures of incoherence that pollutes the rest of the film, it wouldn’t really seem like that much of a stretch.

But as the CG winds wind down, we’re left with the inexcusable knowledge that the people onscreen presumably once took an acting lesson or two and I feel compelled to tisk tisk them for their work here. Seriously, this ought to be embarrassing for everyone involved. Hand slaps for all.

Whilst the inadvertent humor disqualifies Into the Storm from the most painful movie experience of the year accolade, that’s still not something you want to pull for the box art quote. It’s a disaster of a disaster film, never meant to exist outside the shadow of Twister. As trucks get hucked and characters chucked, at least Storm can claim to have made me cackle. It can’t be denied that while laughing at you may be worse than laughing with you, it’s still better than not laughing at all.

D

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A Definitive Ranking of Marvel’s Movies

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Nowadays the mantra seems to go, “If you’ve seen ’em, rank ’em.” And me being the non-boat-rocking critic that I am, I’ve decided it pertinent to rank all of the Marvel Cinematic Universe movies what with Guardians of the Galaxy releasing wide today and all. As is with all lists, this numbered collection is infallible and completely definitive. Although other people may seek to disagree with the rankings laid out below, scientifically any contention is wrong. You know, because opinion is objective and I’m always right.

I’m sure everyone’s cooked up with own list, either on paper or in their minds, and mine will incite fire to spew from your eyes and burn a hole in the screen but this is how I have to break down the Marvel movies. I’m chiefly taking into consideration my enjoyment of any of the below films but am also considering the relative importance of each in the grand scheme of the Marvel Cinematic Universe and their impact on film in general. So ready your hunting knives, because here I go… Read More