Out in Theaters: LOVE IS STRANGE

August 27, 2014 by Matt Oakes Posted in Out in Theaters Tagged Charlie Tahan, Cheyenne Jackson, Darren E. Burrows, John Lithgow, Love is Strange, Marisa Tomei, Out in Theaters, Reviews 1 Comment

Love is strange. It’s hard to pin down, impossible to predict and most of the time doesn’t really make much sense. Aristophanes claimed that love was the end of the search for one’s other half. Plato stated that love is a serious mental disease. In the ironic tremble of John Lennon, “Love is all you need.” Ira Sachs‘ lovingly made and tenderly acted film Love is Strange seeks to answer the question: is love all you need?

Ben and George have been in a relationship for 25 years. They’ve shared beds, apartments, lovers. They’ve built a life for themselves. We come into the story and meet the two twilight-yeared lovers on the morning of their marriage, now finally legal. Ben, played by John Lithgow, is as frazzled as his fluffed-up, bone white patch of hair. Scrambling to find his glasses and fidgeting his way through the scene, he’s the id of this relationship’s persona. Alfred Molina‘s George is a statue of patience, a kindly, lovable soul who’s quite clearly the more stable of the two. Their respective professions speak to that fact as well.

George has taught music for a Christian academy for a great many years whiles Ben is a pretty-much retired artist. They both are passionately involved in the arts but there’s a great divide between the teachers and the doers – as some might say, “Those that can’t do, teach” – one that separates the patient from the impertinent, the socialites from the misanthropes. Ben isn’t as cagey or bitter as one might imagine from an old semi-successful painter but he’s not how one would describe “easy going,” a thread that runs through the film.

Shortly after their wedding nuptials, George is “let go” from his career on the grounds of getting “gay married”. While his argument that “everyone already knew” is logically sound, it’s kinda a no-brainer that a Christian organization isn’t going to be the most supportive of his particular life style choice. As their income well runs dry, Ben and George reach out to their family and close friends, including Marisa Tomei, Darren E. Burrows, and Cheyenne Jackson, to put them up for a while whilst they figure out the proverbial next step. As they soon discover, this new found living situation has a larger impact on both them and their gracious host families than any of them could have initially expected.

As a showcase of acting prowess, Love is Strange is a beast. Lithgow and Molina both shine improbably bright, with tenderness, honesty and earnestness seeping through their pores. Lithgow hasn’t been this exposed in many years and Molina may have never stood so tall. We feel their connection singing from the screen; each kiss feels as organic as the kale you bought from this morning’s Farmer’s Market, each gentle gesture a remarkable feat of losing yourself to a character. It’s their caring energy and adroit performances that give the film such power, but they manage to outshine some of their younger co-stars.

A side track involving Joey (Charlie Tahan), the petulant son of Tomei, seems at times forced; an avenue for extra drama that isn’t really ever needed. In a film that’s all about nuance, his scenes dump a cold bucket of water on the building sense of subtle, creeping animosity. Aside from a cloying Joey outburst or two though, the supporting cast is a rock-solid addition to keep the affair utterly believable and succulently emotional. Tomei in particular hasn’t been this good since The Wrestler.

As Sachs’ story draws on, we gain a better understanding of his intentions. This is not a queer story. It’s not a generational story. It’s a timeless saga of the heart wanting what the heart wants, of the people you’re closest to annoying you the most, about personal space and the sucking invasion that is “letting someone crash there”. It’s a tale we’ve all lived through, a junction we all dread. Offering it up with as much honesty as he has, Sachs has brought the heart and soul of a tale not often told onscreen to our attention in an unpolluted and entirely relevant manner. He’s put our lives on the screen and in doing so has made something quite beautiful and often touching.

Beneath Sachs’ caring direction is a wealth of production touches to love, from the handsome set design to the cutting piano sonatas. Susan Jacob‘s classical musical selection is soft and vibrant, giving a sense of sophistication to the picture as Christos Voudoruis‘ warm, amber hues imbrue the drama with a sense of hopefulness, even amongst those most difficult times. Love is Strange is a film made with a heart full of sadness and love and one worth recommending for the soaring performances alone. So is love all you need? Probably not, but it sure does help.

B+

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Out in Theaters: THE NOVEMBER MAN

August 25, 2014 by Matt Oakes Posted in Out in Theaters Tagged Bill Smitrovich, Karl Gajdusek, Lazar Ristovski, Luke Bracey, Michael Finch, Out in Theaters, Pierce Brosnan, Reviews, Roger Donald, The November Man 1 Comment

It’s been a full dozen years since Pierce Brosnan and co. shamed the Bond franchise with Die Another Day – the 007 movie with an invisible car, “glacier surfing” and Halle Berry. Since 2002, his film career has all but gone undercover. He’s starred in a slew of little known independent films with his most well-known appearances likely being in Roman Polanski‘s excellent Ghost Writer, more recently in Edgar Wright‘s trilogy-capping The World’s End and in 2008, ugh, Mama Mia! I guess that’s what makes the Goldeneye-starrer’s reunion with a pistol all the more exciting and, ultimately, forgivable.

The November Man starts on fine spy fare footing with Brosnan, now more of a silver fox than ever, on an undercover mission to save some politician in some country. The scene both introduces us to Brosnan’s hard-shelled Peter Deveraux and battle green sidekick David Mason (a not-so-hot Luke Bracey) and establishes Deveraux as the no-frills man on a mission that we’d expect from this brand of no-stops thriller. You see, Deveraux’s so committed to the job that he impersonates the politician who’s life is on the line so THE ASSASSIN-TO-BE WILL SHOOT AT HIM, THUS IDENTIFYING HIMSELF. It’s a brilliant plan if you’re made of brass and bolts but, as Mason says, “The vest won’t stop a headshot.” In a movie that’s more about headshots than brains, we, like Deveraux, must too be willing to take that risk.

Yada, yada, something about checking your line of sight, Deveraux takes a fistful of asinine assassin bullets, and Mason fires against Deveraux’s direct command, taking a kid out with the trash that is the would-be assassin. Flash forward three years and Deveraux’s off the job now, a rogue seemingly working as a nine-to-five playboy.

Wasting no time at all, Deveraux receives a phone call from his old handler Hanley (Bill Smitrovich) informing him that he’s needed for one more assignment… off the books. Deveraux is to travel to Russia to obtain extremely sensitive material from a former mole that could put political kingpin and Arkady Federov (Bond alum Lazar Ristovski) in the pocket of American interests. In a matter of minutes, the pieces are in place and the bullets are let loose like dogs off a leash, leading to Deveraux’s fated meeting with Alice (another Bond alum, leading lady Olga Kurylenko), a social worker who knows more than she lets on.

Based on Bill Granger’s book “There Are No Spies”, The November Man gets the adaptation treatment from Michael Finch and Karl Gajdusek who make a game of mimicking prior entries to the spy genre. Unfortunately, the joke is ultimately on them. And us. While their screenplay serves to get characters from one chase or gun battle to the next, there’s little to no nuance in character relationships, rendering all of the eventual reveals moot.

The only character who seems to make it out of Gajdusek and Finch’s unsavory writing web unscathed is Deveraux, a living, breathing reminder of how great Brosnan could be as Bond. But as Bourne paved the way for Daniel Craig‘s reinvented Bond, Brosnan’s new no-nonsense spy is inspired by the gray-paned realism of a post-911 world. He’s a much more chilly iteration of the lovable, pun-heavy spy he played in the past who even dips into a show of deplorable acts. A mid-movie scene that’s meant to showcase Deveraux impressing upon his could-have-been-protegee Mason the commitment required to excel at such a job is brutal and shocking, even if it doesn’t fit into the movie.

Here is a man who is willing to gauge the femoral artery of a bystander just to teach someone a lesson. That’s the movie I want to see. Had Roger Donald committed to making that movie, I believe Pierce Brosnan may be looking down the barrel at his own Taken franchise. As is, Relativity has already gone ahead and green lit a sequel before The November Man has even made it to theaters but there’s no one living who wouldn’t call that a Vegas gamble. Take into consideration the fact that (as of writing this) the film has a 14% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes and has been advertised virtually nowhere and you have a obvious example of a studio putting the cart before the horse.

The question remains: will this be a success with audiences? All evidence points to a resounding meh but quite honestly, the meh-ness of The November Man might just prove the requisite semi-excitement that the late-August movie-going crowd needs. While it’s no Taken (nor is it Taken 2…), The November Man is probably as close to Tooken as we’ll ever see.

C

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Weekly Review 51: GIGOLO, STAGE, CONGRESS, IMMIGRANT, FITZCARRALDO

August 25, 2014 by Matt Oakes Posted in Weekly Review Tagged Fading Gigolo, Fitzcarraldo, Reviews, Stage Fright, The Congress, The Immigrant, Weekly Review

From Woody Allen to Meatloaf, this installment of Weekly Review takes a look at some of the flicks of 2014 that haven’t met much fanfare. I visited John Turturro‘s Fading Gigolo, the SXSW horror movie Stage Fright, last year’s Cannes film The Congress starring Robin Wright, James Gray‘s historical drama The Immigrant and took a trip back in time for Werner Herzog‘s Fitzcarraldo. In theaters, I faced down Chloe Moretz for an interview and squared off against Sin City: A Dame to Kill For and If I Stay, two bad movies, and The November Man, which I’ll have a review of this week. In general, we’ll write this week off as August woes.

Fading Gigolo (2014)

When Woody Allen and John Turturro share a room, Fading Gigolo is a poignant, engaging dramedy with life and a lion’s share of wit. Whilst on their own, Turturro’s directorial project falls short, often coming up with goopy handfuls of sand. Gigolo is certainly better than the obvious comparison of Rob Schneider‘s bottom-feeding Deuce Bigalow: Male Gigolo but suffers its own rom-com trappings. As the romance ratchets up so does our suspension of disbelief run out of steam. Tender and real, Turturro gives one of his better performances and it’s nothing short of a joy to watch Woody ooze out lines on screen again. Liev Schreiber is quietly impressive as morally upstanding, Hasidic Jew antagonist Dovi but it becomes increasingly harder and harder to buy Vanessa Paradis‘ Avigal. (C+)

Stage Fright (2014)

On an actual stage, Stage Fright would probably work better. Plop it in an off-Broadway theater, fill it with fresh young faces and anchor it with Meatloaf and you might even have a hit. As is, it’s a convoluted mess that never makes a lick of sense. The musical elements – with songs that are more cringe-worthy than catchy – fit awkwardly amongst the gory, backstage murder scenes with long bouts of bloodlessness adding little momentum to the long-winded proceedings. Some of the more ludicrously campy elements do shine through the muck but it can’t make up for the mismatched genres slammed awkwardly together. (D+)

The Congress (2014)

Occasionally touching, always strange and a visual feast in the spirit of The Beatle‘s Yellow Submarine, The Congress is a recklessly ambitious take on the future of Hollywood and mankind. Robin Wright stars as a version of herself who sells her image to Miramount (an almost lame on-the-nose parody) in order to stay relevant. As the film crosses the 45 minute mark, everything turns animated and things tend to get out of director Ari Folman‘s control. There’s a wonderful scene right before the transition in which Harvey Keitel and Wright share a powerful moment of self-reflection and admiration. It’s so full of heart and earnest emotion that it makes the jarring shift to Folman’s wackadoo animation all the more confuzzled. Though much of what occurs in the second act could have been synthesized into a more focused and fluent movement of ideas, the film finishes on an extreme high note. Knowing that the film took seven years to get together and finish, it’s no wonder that some things have jumped the proverbial shark. Even with all its slips and follies, The Congress is an acid trip of a flick, with all the highs and lows that accompany such. (B-)

The Immigrant (2014)

A costume drama that’s proved divisive amongst critics and audience members, James Gray‘s The Immigrant is a dressed-up tale of woe that ultimately disservices the talented actors within. Marion Cotillard is Polish immigrant Ewa, who has arrived on Ellis Island with a sick sister and a bit of a slutty reputation. She’s swoon swept up by a powerful pimp (Joaquin Phoenix) who forces her into prostitution so she can pay for her sister’s care. There are occasionally strong scenes, most of which start and end with Jeremy Renner, but Gray’s morbid fascination leaves little room for his characters to breathe. Ewa is often lifeless, a victim of circumstances who we’re told is more of a siren than we ever are lead to believe and Phoenix’s Bruno never goes through the transformation his final scenes seem to suggest he has. All in all, there are glimmers of good in The Immigrant but they’re largely snuffed out by borderline bad writing and an often boring tempo. (C-)

Fitzcarraldo (1982)

Werner Herzog‘s trip to the Peruvian jungle didn’t go as planned. While filming Fitzcarraldo, he lost star Jason Robards to dysentery. Robards replacement, frequent Herzog collaborator Klaus Kinski, was so hated by the local tribesman in the film that they offered to kill him for Herzog. From a production side, Herzog insisted on doing all the heavy lifting – quite literally – without the use of any special effects, leading to many on-job injuries and countless wasted hours. It’s a project where the “Making Of” is entirely more interesting than the final product; an admirable effort in the face of adversity that doesn’t quite come together on its one. Fitzcarraldo just never really sucks the viewer in. Aside from Klaus Kinski’s manic performance, the tale is simple and long-drawn, offering the plight of a would-be rubber baron that never takes the time to really flesh out the themes bubbling under the surface. (B-)

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Out in Theaters: SIN CITY: A DAME TO KILL FOR

August 20, 2014 by Matt Oakes Posted in Out in Theaters Tagged Bruce Willis, Christopher Lloyd, Christopher Meloni, Eva Green, Frank Miller, Jeremy Piven, Jessica Alba, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Josh Brolin, Mickey Rourke, Out in Theaters, Powers Booth, Ray Liotta, Reviews, Robert Rodriguez, Rosario Dawson, Sin City: A Dame to Kill For

An argument could be made that Sin City: A Dame to Kill For isn’t really a movie. There’s no real story to speak of, and what does try to pass as a story is a shambled mess of ultra-violent non-sequiturs; a collage of half-thought through ideas that never add up or mean anything in the context of one another. A movie flows through a collective of ideas adding onto one another to create a cohesive narrative. This is like someone cut up a bunch of comic books and glued their favorite parts together. And that someone is 12 and loves blood and boobies.

Nine years ago, Robert Rodriguez and Frank Miller were truly onto something with Sin City. Their electrifying visual palette – stark blacks-and-whites accented by flourishes of blood red and bastard yellow – wasn’t just a new ballgame. It was a whole damn other stadium. But for all the success and acclaim their co-directorial debut received, the aesthetic trend never caught on.

Be that because Miller nosedived that visual flair into the ground with the widely panned The Spirit or because it felt like an aesthetic signature that only worked for something so rooted in the comic world and violence is unclear. What is however abundantly clear is that in the nearly 10 years since the original’s release, the largely black-and-white, entirely CG graphics have stagnated and soured. Their visuals do look straight from the pages of a hardcover graphic novel but they also lack any consequence and any gravity. Each blow is goofily powerless. Each sword strike looks like it missed. The over-seasoned and thoroughly mannered dialogue do little to convince us otherwise. But they sure do try.

This wouldn’t be such a monumental problem if the whole movie wasn’t a symphony of slamming cars, chopping off heads and getting thrown through pane glass windows. And boobies. For all intents and purposes, Miller’s sparsely imaginative storylines boil down to poor plot devices that get someone’s face from point A to point Through a Glass Window. That is intention numbers one through five. Six through ten consist of getting a dame from point A to point Naked. Seriously, if you can prove to me that this movie wasn’t one long con to reunite Jessica Alba with a stripper pole, I’ll pay your ticket price.

The craziest part is, for all the excessive nudity smeared throughout the flick, none comes from Alba’s Nancy, a stripper who spends the majority of her screen time onstage slapping flesh on hardwood and slithering around on all fours. You see, the boob award goes to Eva Green and her magnificent tata’s. That sex-kitten/minx manages to expose her simply awesome breasts for 90% of the time she occupies the space. When she’s not flipping nude into a pool, rubbing and tubbing up her silky smooth breastoids or macking out with anything with a pair of lips, she’s slipping off her garnets like they’re made of live rattlesnakes. Seriously. Chick lives in the buff. Why she doesn’t work at the strip club is beyond me.

At said Strip Club – Sin City‘s equivalent of Friend‘s Central Perk – one can stumble upon rapscallions of all shapes and sizes. Here, Alba gyrates like a made-up mechanical bull as box-faced Marv (Mickey Rourke) and other scalawags drown their sorrows in booze, taking in fully-clothed Coyote Ugly shows. I swear, Kadie’s Strip Club is the only place in the movie you won’t find a naked lass’ ass.

Here at Kadie’s, the movie reveals itself for the big show of sexy, stylized, senseless smut that it is. Here, plot lines are born and die without a smidgeon of fanfare. Here, characters rub elbows like they live in a small town of 2,000 residents. Here, lives the deus ex machina that is Marv, an individual whose sole purpose is to help characters murder other characters. He’s more MacGuffin than person, more meat than man. He’s only there to get peps out of a fix but has no storyline of his own. I guess someone out there needed to cut Mickey Rourke a paycheck.

Characters slither in and out of Kadie’s to grab their few minutes in the sun and bump uglies with the charter of vixens sprawling indoors. Joseph Gordon Levvett is compelling as a smooth-talking gambler but his plot line goes absolutely nowhere real fast. Alba, reeling from the loss of loved one Hartigan (Bruce Willis), eventually goes through a wardrobe change supposed to signal character progression but none is emotionally present. She goes from whoring herself with dangerous men to hurling herself at dangerous men and then all of a sudden the screen goes black. Nothing really happens. Just lots of murder and titties.

In the most movie-like portion of the film, Josh Brolin steps in for Clive Owen and captures the only almost-fully formed story of the bunch. However, his saga is littered with major congruency issues and logic problems of its own, the least of which is why he seems to believe that suiting up with a bad wig will make him look like an entirely new person. You scratch your head that someone actually wrote this stuff down.

For my barrage of complaints, it wouldn’t be fair to say that I hated Sin City: A Dame to Kill For because I quite honestly didn’t. I enjoy the ultra-violent, ultra-silly take on film noir. I chuckle at the trumped-up performances, meretricious violence and graphic sexuality on neon-flashing display. I gobble up the stubborn dedication to bring a comic book to life. But to claim that it’s not a bad, unnecessary, boorish slouch of a film would be a bold-faced lie. There’s little here that makes sense and nothing that will add to your understanding of Frank Miller‘s should-be compelling world of sin. Like 300: Rise of an Empire before it, Sin City: A Dame to Kill For is just another chance for Frank Miller to show off how poor he is at extending franchises.

C-

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Out in Theaters: IF I STAY

August 20, 2014 by Matt Oakes Posted in Out in Theaters Tagged Chloe Grace Moretz, Gayle Forman, If I Stay, Jamie Blackley, Mireille Enos, Out in Theaters, R.J. Cutler, Reviews

Like Kurosawa armed with dueling loafs of cheesy bread, If I Stay takes out the cheese stick and beats everything to death with it. There’s tragiporn spilling from every nook, weepy-anguish souping from every cranny. It’s not enough for a family to die, they must be dealt with in one sorry, sappy blow after the next. Stretch that sadness as thin as pizza dough. Work those tear ducts like they’re 1800’s railroad laborers. Bathe it all in bathos, rinse and repeat. An exercise in wringing a stale conceit for all it’s worth, If I Stay is what happens when you turn one car crash into an entire movie.

One must presume that Gayle Forman‘s novel, on which this film is based, has captured something of the post-pubescent longing for one’s first bone sesh in ravishing detail. How else can you explain the teenybopper cult follower it’s earned? After all, Twilight has taught us by now that sexual angst, like beluga caviar, sells by the ounce. Assuming it’s similar to the film, Forman’s story throttles between two events: Mia (Chloe Grace Moretz) falling in love for the first time and all of her family bar none dying in a horrific car accident. Like pie and ice cream, this sappy romance comes with calamity a la mode.

The crash – revealed in the trailers – happens early on. So while I’m not quite laying out a major spoiler smackdown, I’ll spare you the hyper-lachrymose details and tell you that people be dying. As Mia and her stretcher-bound family speed off to the hospital director R.J. Cutler finds it the perfect time to introduce Mia’s on-again-off-again romance with Jonas Brother wanna-be Adam (Jamie Blackley). Their high school romance is spliced into the tale in long-winded, saccharine flashbacks. Because who doesn’t want their fledging romance served up with ambulance sirens and life support tubes?

Withdrawing from her physical body, Mia experiences an “out of body” trip where she watches over herself and her equally battered family members. Completely unnecessary from a narrative perspective, it allows Moretz to narrate at us in gushy, jejune “prose”. One by one, the fate dominoes fall the wrong way and she considers bailing on her own body and giving up to the great void of white light. It’s so hopelessly dramatic that I’m surprised she didn’t come down with a case of Million Dollar bedsores during her stay.

Offscreen, Cutler lathers up the melodrama like he’s hosting a Nicholas Spark car wash on a hot day. He wants so badly for you to cry, he’ll shoulder tap to remind you of just how sad everything is as often as he can. Throw up your arms and howl at the sky, Cutler’s coming fa ya tears!

But get them he shall not. In my theater, there was a grown woman weeping petulantly as the gimpy drama unfolded onscreen. When I encountered her a few days later, she admitted how cheap the shots were, how lame her tears ultimately had been. If I Stay is the amazingly bad weepy flick that’ll have people taking back their tears.

Regurgitating all the stops like from a Sparknote’s “How to Do Tragedy for Dummies”, If I Stay is a pathetically aimless attempt to weave sadness into a story. It’s so emotionally inept that it makes this year’s other tragic teenage love story – the one in which cancer-stricken 18-year olds make out in Anne Frank’s attic as tourist bystanders cheer them on – look like an Oscar contender.

I pity Mireille Enos (The Killing) who really does give it her all here, but everything about the flick is hammy past the point of pulled pork. She’s the only one who seems to try to reign in the supremely blood-and-thunder aspects of Forman’s tragiporn. Moretz goes for broke and breaks herself. Blackley is as helpless and hapless as Old Yeller. Someone put his pout down. Someone rip that earring out.

All in all, If I Stay is the feeble movie equivalent of dubstep. The only reason I can see it being worthwhile for a viewer familiar with the books is the wait for the drops. Lying in wait, accepting all the sappy mess sandwiched in between, is this what makes this heinous experiment in contrived hardship worthwhile? Does the same impulse that dictates people to thrash their head on a downbeat inspire them to want to yank their heartstrings and blubber at artificial woe? Everything is blanketed in oily snow with Heitor Pereira‘s musical score leaking sap like a maple tree.

If I Stay is the useless kind of movie for people who have nothing else to be bummed about. It invites you to wonder if people do sit around and revel in the slow reveal of dead characters? If I Stay thinks yes. I say no.

D-

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Talking with Chloe Grace Moretz of IF I STAY

August 20, 2014 by Matt Oakes Posted in Interviews Tagged Chloe Grace Moretz, Gayle Forman, If I Stay, Interviews

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

August 15, 2014 by Matt Oakes Posted in Weekly Review Tagged 13 Sins, Ida, Mood Indigo, The Good the Bad the Weird, Transformers: Age of Extinction, 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)

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)

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)

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)

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)

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

August 13, 2014 by Matt Oakes Posted in Out in Theaters Tagged Alexander Skarsgård, Brenton Thwaites, Cameron Monaghan, Jeff Bridges, Katie Holmes, Meryl Streep, Odeya Rush, Out in Theaters, Phillip Noyce, Reviews, The Giver 27 Comments

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.

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.

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.

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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TEST

August 13, 2014 by Matt Oakes Posted in Lists

Test

Talking With Charlie McDowell of THE ONE I LOVE

August 12, 2014 by Matt Oakes Posted in Interviews Tagged Charlie McDowell, Director Spotlight, Interview, The One I Love

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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