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Documentary Dossier: JODOROWSKY’S DUNE

by Posted in Documentaries, Out in Theaters Tagged , , , , 1 Comment

Four critics were sitting in AMC’s Pacific Place Theater 7 when I walked in. It was instantly noticeable: a strange, syncopated rhythm of staticky beat-box. Kind of like the sound you hear when you rim the audio jack on a speaker system with your finger. The crackling and buzzing grew worse as we sat, until it was operating at about four beats per second. More critics walked into the cramped space, all to the same static, electronic concerto. Louder and louder it grew until even thoughts became inaudible. Then it stopped, and Jodorowsky’s Dune began.

 

Alejandro Jodorowsky is what results when lunacy is inbred with sadistic perversion. He’s an acid trip embodied. His ideas are just as wild. As you watch him throw his thoughts around, you can’t figure out if he disgusts you or thrills you. He’s reminiscent of the old homeless folk you run into on a public bus, the type that’s dying to tell you his crackpot theory: Jesus Christ is building a golden city in the sewer and George W. Bush killed Franz Ferdinand.

The French-Chilean director is teethy. A spritely 85 years old, his blindingly white grin is huge. His choppers spread from his mouth like a horse’s smile. His hair flops around as he gesticulates wildly, describing his imaginations and mental illusions. His “r’s” roll off his tongue with the weight of bowling barrels. But those bright pearly whites draw you in.

Jodorowsky’s Dune is about this man’s failed journey to create Dune, a film adaptation of Frank Herbert’s 1965 science fiction novel of the same title. Early on, Jodorowsky tells us, “I never read Dune.” The film is more a face-to-face conversation than it ever is documentary. Jodorowsky and the crew he assembled to make Dune, as well as a clan of historians and filmmakers, sit in front of the camera to recount how Dune was never made. At one point, a cat wanders into the scene. He picks it up and just keeps going.

“What is the goal of life? It’s to create yourself a soul. For me, movies are an art, more than industry. And it’s the search of the human soul, as painting, as literature, as poetry.” Jodorowsky walks us through the history, about half the time in English, the rest in Spanish. He tells us he wanted to create a movie that causes an experience equivalent to that of an LSD trip. In Dune, he wanted to create a prophet.

He pulls a massive book—the size of two phonebooks—from his shelves: Dune is written in big white font on the cover, overlaying a drawing of a zebra-striped purple and yellow spaceship. Contained within this monumental bible are all the scenes, concept art, scripts, storyboards that were never brought to life. Drive’s director, Nicolas Winding Refn, explains how Jodorowsky once showed him the book. “I’m the only guy who ever saw Jodorowsky’s Dune… Let me tell you something. It is awesome.”

Jodorowsky’s goal is to rape our minds, he says, and slowly, he inseminates you. What starts out as a lunatic’s ranting soon becomes an exploration into the soul’s deepest crevasses. Brave director Richard Stanley tells us that Dune’s the greatest movie never made, and we have a hard time believing him. Then, we see Dune.

A design by H.R. Giger for Jodorowsky’s Dune that was incorporated in Alien. 

Just as he somehow recruited famous artists Pink Floyd, H.R. Giger, Michel Seydoux, Orson Welles, Salvador Dali (who requested $100,000 a minute), Chris Foss, Jean Giraud, and even forced his own son to do years of martial arts to star in the film, he sucks you into his cosmos. What begins as an impossible dream becomes an insatiable reverie. Jodorowsky becomes the drug, the hallucinogen that pulls you into his world-bending soulscape. He’s Alfonso Cuaron with Jules Verne’s imagination and Hitler’s ambition.

Somehow, he fits all the pieces together, and then everything falls apart. As written, Dune would have been 14 hours, it would have cost millions, and no one wanted to finance it. We weren’t ready. We weren’t equipped. We weren’t worthy.

Hollywood told Alejandro he couldn’t join in the fun. You can’t play with us, Hollywood said. Little did they know, he built the playground. The woodchips and tree scrap they were rolling around on? His design; his team of artists and writers and producers went on to work in the industry, infecting the film world with Alejandro. Movies like Alien, Blade Runner, The Matrix, any sci-fi or blockbuster film, they’ve all been influenced by Jodorowsky’s failed dream.

Jodorowsky—this insane old perverted Spaniard dripping with crazy—pulls the world as we know it apart and then forces it back together with his hands, like an accordionist rending the world with every note. Dune was some sort of calamity, a virtual reality, a rift in time, a temporal split of magnanimous proportions. Jodorowsky broke the universe into two when he set about making his film; we’re just living in the reality where we got Star Wars instead.

So the playground carries on, not with him but within him. Somehow, he became the prophet he set out to make. Shine us with your light Alejandro. How glorious it is!

When Jodorowsky’s Dune ended, it was as if my mind was set free. Not so much as a spiritual or metaphysical awakening, just an awakening to the mind and soul. I couldn’t stop thinking. Jodorowsky had convinced me just like everyone else who clung to this doomed project. His charm, his conviction and passion, somehow it opened my eyes to the world. I began to rethink everything. Maybe that static beat-box had a purpose. Maybe that was Alejandro’s way of communicating to us, of implanting that initial seed, of reaching through space and time. Maybe that was an alternate universe Jodorowsky trying to connect. “Hello? You can hear me?”

Jodorowsky raped my mind. And I loved it. Yeah. Or maybe that’s just the Stockholm Syndrome talking.

A

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Talking with Fernando Coimbra of A WOLF AT THE DOOR

by Posted in Interviews Tagged , , , ,

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2014 looks to be the year of the twisted headline movie. With Kumiko the Treasure Hunter, we saw the real life story of a doomed Japanese misanthrope come to America and damned to stubborn and horrifying resilience. The Monument’s Men and Cesar Chavez brought horror to the screen for all the wrong reasons (*yawn*). Fernando Coimbra‘s A Wolf at the Door (“O Lobo atrás da Porta”) is similarly based upon a true story of relationships gone terribly awry, charged by a headline that will leave you in shock and awe. To be any less than stunned, stupefied and all but weeping in a depressed pile of nauseous disgust is less than human. Intrigued?

 

Then you might want to look into A Wolf at the Door, which opened at last season’s Toronto International Film Festival before moving to the Zurich Film Fest, The Brazil Film Fest of Paris and Minneapolis-St. Paul International Film Festival. During its journey around the world, it has left viewers largely haunted. I chatted with Fernando to talk about his TIFF success, Greek tragedy, Brazilian film, women’s rights and murder. Be warned, spoilers are included in the interview.

You mentioned that you see ‘A Wolf at the Door’ as kind of a twist on the Medea story. Do you see it more as a modernized take or a distinctly Brazilian take on that Greek tragedy?

Fernando Coimbra: Yeah, the film was inspired by a true story that happened in Rio De Janeiro. And I had read about this story, and there are similar narratives to Medea the Greek tragedy. I thought that was interesting because of the drama, and details, and then the tragedy at the end. But the inspiration was this true story. It’s not an adaptation because a lot of things are different in the story. The way she killed the girl, the way she got close to the mother. It’s very similar to what happened in the true story.

Wow I didn’t even know that it was a true story.

FC: It repeats sometimes. Before shooting the film there was another story that was very similar to this story.

And this is in Brazil as well, the more recent story?

FC: Yeah, it was in Brazil and it was in Rio De Janeiro. Same town, same place.

Do you see this as a distinctly Brazilian/Rio De Janeiro film? This story, do you see it as something that could only happen here?

FC: No, I think the story could happen anywhere. It talks about very basic instincts and very basic emotions that I think every human being has. That’s why I wanted to tell the story. When I read about the story, the old newspapers and all the press treated Bernando like a monster, like a beast, like a kind of non-human being. I think it’s a passionate crime. It’s something very close to us. I want to tell the story to understand how humans could behave like that. I think it could happen in any culture. Medea is a Greek tragedy that is very basic to all human beings.

Was the forced abortion part of the real story as well or was that something you added?

FC: I decided to make the film from two different points of view because they tell different stories. The men never thought about the abortion because originally he had never harmed her. But in court she said it happened in a very similar way as it happens in the film.

Wow. So, one of the things you play with very early on is this idea of the unreliable narrator. From the get-go we’re getting these three different tellings of the same story that don’t necessarily make sense in the context of one another. We know that somebody is making something up. As we go on, Rosa becomes the main narrative thread and her tale becomes almost a reality. From my initial reading of the film, not knowing that it was based on a true story, I felt there was room for doubt in her version of the story. Was that at all intentionally on your part? For instance, maybe the whole abortion thing was made up or maybe, in the context of this film, she never committed that heinous final crime. Or do you see it as more cut and dry than that?

FC: Yes, I want the audience to doubt. I begin the film at the police station and I present all the characters because you don’t know at this moment who’s telling the truth, who they really are, if they’re telling their version of the story. You haven’t seen their lives and their relationships. People sometimes think, ah this is true, but you never know because of the two points of views. He could be lying, she could be lying. We don’t know what’s happened between them.

The film deals with some rather dark subject matter: the murder of children, forced abortions. Do you see that as an obstacle to getting the film into larger markets or do you think this is a film that people are prepared to see?

FC: I think when you are ready to screen the film to film professionals it works very well with that audience. But for bigger screenings, you worry if it’s gonna be a problem. But once you get into the story and understand it, you aren’t as shocked by the crime. It’s a challenge because when you tell the story, you get a little bit afraid. It’s so brutal. But when you see the film you see that it’s not so bad.

The way you film it, it’s like this John Steinbeck moment where she’s putting the child down in almost the nicest way possible. She takes it like, “Oh just look at the ground honey, everything will be ok”. She’s not doing it out of hostility but it seems to her like a necessity. Obviously the film relies heavily on the actors because it’s more about characters than anything else. I was wondering what your approach was to directing your actors. Did you leave them alone for most of it to do their work or were you more hands on with them?

FC: I worked a lot with them. We did a lot of research before shooting. We worked very hard on the rehearsals and they’re really great actors. We had to work together and find forms of acting that are very intimate. I used to be an actor. I’m not an actor anymore because I’m not a good actor. (Laughter) It would’ve been a lot different if I didn’t have the right actors for it.

Absolutely. So, one of the things that the film deals with is this issue of women’s rights. It’s one of the subtexts that continues throughout the film, giving a voice to women who maybe in other situations would be more demonized. Were you trying to make any particular statement about women’s rights or was that more incidental?

FC: It was not the main thing in my mind. I know that I talk about forced abortions, rape, when the child has problems, money problems, and the rights of the woman to have an abortion or not. Men kind of dominate the mind of society about these things. This is part of society but I know that it’s become part of the subject of the film.

I’ll admit to not knowing too much about Brazilian cinema. Can you give me some examples of works from Brazilian cinema that have inspired you, or that you grew up on?

FC: There are some directors from the 60’s and 70’s that I like a lot. One of them is maybe the best director that we have: Wagner Rocha. He was a great director, very different than my films. He has inspired my films. There’s another director that has a name that does not look Brazilian. It’s Leon Ishmael. He did a film in the suburbs in the 60’s based on a Brazilian play-writer that was all about passion and relationships and tragedy. He really inspired me about the way to shoot this film.

Do you plan on continuing to make movies in Brazil or do you think you’ll ever try Hollywood on for size?

FC: I have a lot of projects in Brazil that are starting to develop. But I have talked about some projects in Hollywood. The film Wolf at the Door got a great reaction so agencies and managers are talking about some new stuff. I cannot say now because we never know. What I have now… it’s perfect in Brazil and I’m starting to write some new projects. I hope it goes far.

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Out in Theaters: JOE

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Joe populates a stretch of XL bible belted, confederate flag-waving backwoods Texas with rapists and murders of the worst degree, painting a picture so unrelenting bleak that a repeat drunk driver that spends his days in whore houses and/or dog fighting is our closest thing to a hero. It’s a place where slavery may as well have been yesteryear, where molestation lurks around every corner, where hope goes to die. It’s a small nowheresville of inexplicable evil. Like a flash sideways where Jack didn’t cork the Island’s malevolent juju (“Lost” reference alert). Joe lives in a land where morals come to roast on skewers and are snacked on by open-mouthed buffoons. This is Kentucky Fried hell. But even hell must have its fallen angels. Read More

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Out in Theaters: TRANSCENDENCE

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Every once in a blue moon an unsung talent breaks out of their wheelhouse to extraordinary results.  Quentin Tarantino famously emerged from a video store, learning his craft at the film school of VHS rentals. Ron Howard was a can-kicking child actor before stepping in to direct acclaimed films like Apollo 13, Rush and Academy Award winner A Beautiful Mind. Even Japanese auteur and samurai-lordship himself Akira Kurosawa trained as a painter before ever stepping behind a camera. The lesson is: great directors can come from pretty much anywhere. Wally Pfister, longtime cinematographer for Christopher Nolan (another cinebuff who did not receive formal film school education) and head hancho of Transcendence, has spent the better part of two decades behind a camera. But this is the first time he’s sat in the black foldout chair etched with the word “director.” In this 100 million dollar dry run of his, he’s all but sullied the name.

Pfister directs Transcendence with the style of a National Geographic cinematographer. He looms on intimate nature shots – drops of water claim close ups like they’re signing off Sunset Boulevard – before casting panoramic crane shots of jumbled mountains cloaked in forest or tumbleweed-kicking stretch of desert lit up by solar panels as far as the eye can see. Pfister’s settings are beautifully lighted and wonderfully scenic but they still feel like the work of a DP showing off in full masturbatory fashion. Any certifiable director would have slashed wasted minutes lingering on Kodak moments without blinking.

While Pfister flexes his eye for topography, the story beats from screenwriter Jack Paglen quickly become the biggest point of contention. Paglen’s plot follows Dr. Will Caster (Johnny Depp), a brilliant scientist on the verge of breaking new ground on AI technology that will forever change the world. Talked into a presentation to secure grant money by wife and partner Evelyn (Rebecca Hall), Will (Paglen’s cipher) brings up some interesting questions about our relationship to technology. Since SkyNet, we’ve had a general distrust of technology overtaking their human creators. The threat lies in supremacy. While human minds are capped by biological limitations, machines face no such boundaries (a theme that Spike Jonze‘s Her explored in much simpler and yet more compelling and grandiose terms). This goes on to become the central theme of the movie: can we trust technology that outgrows us?

As one might expect, not everyone in Paglen’s tale thinks an all-powerful machine is a good thing so anti-technology, terrorist network Rift, lead by an inexcusably bleach blonde Kate Mara, are willing to do whatever it takes to prevent a future that involves Terminators, the Matrix, and whatnot. Cue an assassination attempt on Will that proves slowly successful (radiation poisoning FTW!). Will’s ticking clock leads Evelyn to take the next step in their research by “uploading” Will’s consciousness into the existing model of AI, code name PIMM. While his body withers and dies, his “self” is transferred into a super computer. Colleague and trusted friend of the Crasters, Max Waters (Paul Bettany), says that the thing in the computer ain’t Will no more but Evelyn just won’t hear it. Like Joaquin Phoenix, she’s seduced by Depp’s Him.

And speaking of Depp, can we all just finally own up to the fact that he’s just not a good actor? He depends on hairdos to express his emotional status (also, why does every movie scientist need at least one scene with frazzled bedhead?) and not caked in makeup or prancing around a Tim Burton set, he’s just dull to watch. Even without the weird, he’s still oppressively meh. It doesn’t help that his lines and those of his co-stars sound like they were scrawled into a napkin hours before shooting. Some of Paglen’s philosophy masks itself as high concept but with dialogue this trawling, Paglen reveals his cupboard isn’t filled with China. Pfister, likewise, proves inept at directing his actors, a cast that by all means ought to bring more to the table than they do. As things are, they’re like the guests who all cheaped out and brought baguettes to a wine party.

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Pfister’s begged and borrowed a cast from cohort Nolan only to have nothing to do with them. Morgan Freeman only seems here to give a brief voice over (that adds nothing to the film). Otherwise, he looks confused and is always a few minutes behind the other characters. He looked more engaged in his infamous Now You See Me interview than he is here. Cillian Murphy, on the other hand, just has absolutely nothing to do. He might be an under-appreciated talent but not so much that he would sign off for such a flat and lifeless role ad nauseum. Are production re-writes to blame or was Pfister cashing in favors across the board? I guess we’ll never know.

Act one and two have their issues but are by-in-large competently compelling bites of fiction, especially in the context of the ghastly third act. When Pfister, Depp and Co. round the bases and start the journey to home plate, everything gets totally sacked. Rome wasn’t build in a day but it sure could burn in one. Like Will’s late stage admission that “There’s not enough power!”, the internal logic of the film goes haywire in a thoughtless ending that I still can’t make heads or tails of. Instead of offering up an earned and earnest conclusion, Pfister and Paglen eschew explanation like a student who’s “dog ate their homework”. It’s as unsatisfying as one pringle, as tasteless as a whole wheat bun.

Plot mechanics are omnipresent and omnipotent until the script demands it not so, characters unfold incompatible reveals without satisfying explanation, and by the end… well it’s hard to even say how the thing even ended but I’m pretty sure the Apes won? It’s like if Inception had forgone the spinning top for a closing shot of a grinning Leo clone. Keep the WTFs in the can of worms please. Pfister’s shown he can replicate Nolan in broad strokes but, like an AI’s inability to prove its self-awareness, he misses the inexplicable piece that makes a story feel human… oh, and good.

C-

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Out in Theaters: DOM HEMINGWAY

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Bozer, loser Dom Hemingway may be renown for his safe-cracking fingers, but they don’t get an entire soliloquy dedicated to them like his little Dom does. In riotous, far-out hyperbolization, a madcap Jude Law as Dom describes his lowers bits with the candid immodesty of a Manson Family member. The camera jammed tight in his spittle-frothing face, he professes his undying love for his nethers. His Johnson is his fleshy David, his uncut Mona Lisa, his pube-riddled Sistine Chapel. It’s his masterpiece. You don’t hear of screenwriting lessons that teach starting a movie on a three minute penis-focused speech but after Dom Hemingway, they should. It’s a glorious beginning, a magnificently off-kilter snickerfest and character magnification that showcases Law’s brilliance in the role and the boldly misanthropic directions writer/director Richard Shepard is willing to take us. Oh and it turns out that during this whole sequence, Hemingway is being orally pleasured by a dude with a cheap mexistach. The movie could have ended there and been an A+.

After Hemingway receives prison-grounds fellatio, talking through the whole sexventure, we’re given a rock-hard idea of who he is and the extent of his unscrupulousness. He’s the kind of guy who answers phone calls during sex or cuts you off and then gives you the finger or waxes philosophy on his junk while his prison bitch is forced to satiate him. That meticulously claustrophobic, tantalizingly verbose opening scene is our window into Dom’s mordant soul. In his eccentric vernacular, everything is a delicious metaphor, a roundabout simile caked in cusses and c-words.  In another world, he may have been a poet. In this one, he’s getting blowies from dudes in lockup. Such is life.

Outside the prison walls, he dresses like a booze cruise skipper and stomps around town with the purpose of an avenging cuckold. The first thing he does after release is clomp to the auto shop to brutally beat down the man who married his ex-wife. Dom’s actions are that of a world-class megalomaniac with a chip the size of a hatchet on his shoulder. There he stands with bloody hands over the man who raised his bastard daughter and took care of his heart-broken wife. 12 years waiting didn’t work for her so she moved on. Dom, in this and other matters, has not.

He’s a man out of touch with the world. From iPhones to women’s rights, he’s can’t seem to navigate what has become of the world he once was the cream of the crop of. From one scene to the next, it’s Hemingway’s inability to cipher the world of prison rules from outside civilization that gets him so quickly into deep doo-doo. His uncaged loquaciousness is both his charm and his worst enemy, a truth known by colleague and unlikely friend Dickie (Richard E. Grant). While Dom whittled away years in the joint for keeping his uncommonly large trap shut, Dickie whispers assurances of fortune and glory upon his release. Cue a wonderfully tense meeting of the minds as Dom comes face-to-fact with would-be benefactor, Mr. Evan Fontaine, played by the always terrifying Demian Bichir. As Hemingway helplessly unleashes volleys of libelous offense, we see just how much of a big fish in a small pond he is. In everything, the Dom Hemingway model is outdated.

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All that transpires up to here makes for a riotous first half but there’s a notable turning point where penance starts to take hold and everything that makes Dom such an parasitically compelling character start to fade to lighter hues and knee-bending. Law never loses hold of his commanding presence but the script steers him in directions that we would have rather it forsaken. We’ve seen the man trying to win back his family back (even if their family doesn’t include a tragically-hip-haircut-sporting Emilia Clarke) and it fits the ravager Dom like a three-dollar suit.

Suffering from my ‘daughter hates me’ woes, Hemingway looks like a Cocker Spaniel with junk clogging its eyes. He’s a pitiable lunk whose legacy will measure up to his effusive tenure in prison and a propensity to crack out-of-date safes. In the age of electronic everything, even his specialization has outdated him.

As Shepard weaves the character of a bygone criminal braggart into a head-hanging old fool “alone and full of regret”, the bittersweet lark loses its bite. But I guess that’s the point. At some junction, we reassess life, and usually only in circumstances forced upon us. We can’t fight battles of the future with the weapons of the past. Regrettably, Dom Hemingway’s life reassessment feels a bit too much like a guy getting a vasectomy but at least it allowed Jude Law the most daffy, bombastic and peculiarly distinguished performance of his career. For a movie that starts about a guy spewing about the glory of his ding-dong, by the end, everyone’s got him by the balls.

B-

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SIFF 2014 Unveils African Pictures Lineup

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Chiwetel Ejiofor and Thandie Newton in Half of a Yellow Sun

The Seattle International Film Festival has released details on their first bout of films set to span the further reaches of cinema the world over. Putting the “international” in International Film Festival, SIFF takes a decided stance to represent more than a handful of foreign films amongst a smattering of domestic films. Just as many, if not more, films come from around the world and nothing is a better example of this than their African film series. Take a look through the list of eclectic African pictures including World and North American premieres. Full screening details to follow on May 1.

 

 

African Metropolis

d: Marie Ka, Philippe Lacote, Ahmed Ghoneimy, Vincent Moloi, Folsakin Iwajomo, Jim Chuchu, Kenya, Ivory Coast, Egypt, Senegal, Nigeria, South Africa 2013, 92 min

Filmmakers from across the African continent paint a vivid picture of a new, urbanized Africa through innovative short stories featuring six fast-growing major cities: Abidjan, Cairo, Dakar, Johannesburg, Lagos, and Nairobi.

 

B For Boy

d: Chika Anadu c: Uche Nwadili, Nonso Odogwu, Ngozi Amarikwa, Frances Okeke, Nigeria 2013, 118 min


In Chika Anadu’s award-winning debut film, Amaka, a 40-year-old Nigerian woman, is expected to produce a male heir. But when the baby dies in utero, she desperately searches for a solution that would keep her husband from taking a second wife.

 
Difret

d: Zeresenay Berhane Mehari c: Meron Getnet, Tizita Hagere, Ethiopia 2014, 99 min

After being beaten, assaulted, and kidnapped, 14-year-old Aberash shoots and kills her attacker in an act of self-defense, pitting herself and her tenacious lawyer against Ethiopia’s long-standing tradition of marriage by abduction. Based on an extraordinary true story.

 
Electro Chaabi

d: Hind Meddeb, Egypt/France 2013, 77 min

They started as performers in the poorest neighborhoods of Cairo; now they’re among Egypt’s fastest-rising stars. Unlikely musical celebrities, their electrifying version of Arab hip hop has flourished across social classes to become the inspiring soundtrack to a tumultuous time.

 
Finding Fela

d: Alex Gibney, USA 2014, 120 min

Afrobeat pioneer Fela Kuti’s magnetism reverberates through time. The social and political significance of his life’s work is considered through historic clips and scenes from the Broadway musical FELA!


Four Corners
NORTH AMERICAN PREMIERE

d: Ian Gabriel c: Brendon Daniels, Irshaad Ally, Jezriel Skei, Lindiwe Matshikiza, Abdurahman Adams, South Africa 2014, 114 min

13-year-old chess prodigy Ricardo gets caught between two long-warring gangs, the 26s and the 28s of the pitiless Cape Flats of South Africa, just as the father he’s never known is released from prison.

 

Half of a Yellow Sun

d: Biyi Bandele c: Thandie Newton, Chiwetel Ejiofor, John Boyega, Anika Noni Rose, Joseph Mawle, Nigeria/United Kingdom 2013, 106 min

Based on the eponymous novel by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Half of a Yellow Sun follows the lives of two Nigerian sisters in the 1960s who return home after receiving educations in England. The tumultuous Nigerian Civil War is the backdrop to this author-approved drama adaptation.

Leading Lady

 

d: Henk Pretorius c: Gil Bellows, Katie McGrath, Brumilda van Rensburg, Bok van Blerk, Eduan van Jaarsveldt, South Africa 2014, 96 min

From the director of Fanie Fourie’s Lobola, winner of the SIFF 2013 Golden Space Needle Award for Best Film, comes this uplifting tale of a teacher and struggling actress who enlist a South African sheep farmer in helping her prepare for a make-or-break film role. 

Rags and Tatters

d: Ahmad Abdalla c: Asser Yassin, Atef Yousef, Amr Abed, Yara Gubran, Mohamed Mamdouh, Egypt 2013, 87 min

A nameless fugitive fights his way through the chaos of revolutionary Cairo to deliver cell phone footage of police brutality from his dying friend to the outside world. Hailed as “a touchstone of post-revolutionary Egyptian cinema.” 

 

 

The Rooftops

d: Merzak Allouache c: Adila Bendimerad, Nassima Belmihoub, Ahcene Benzerari, Aïssa Chouat, Mourad Khen, Algeria/France 2013, 92 min

Algeria’s most beloved director weaves the story of five Algiers neighborhoods organized according to the five calls to prayer over the course of a single day.

 

 

Salvation Army

d: Abdellah Taïa c: Saïd Mrini, Karim Ait M’hand, Amine Ennaji, Malika El Hamaoui, Frederic Landenberg, Morocco/France 2013, 82 min

Inspired by the director’s own experiences, the film recounts the journey of a gay Moroccan teenager who uses his sexuality to advance his position in, and eventually escape, the society that shuns him. A brave, provocative film that tackles taboo issues to offer a new vision of the queer Arab experience.

 

 

Under the Starry Sky

d: Dyana Gaye c: Marème Demba Ly, Ralph Amoussou, Souleymane Seye N’Diaye, Maya Sansa, Babacar M’Baye Fall, France/Senegal 2013, 86 min

Through three emotionally charged story lines, taking viewers from Senegal to Italy to America and back again, the destinies of three far-flung sojourners connect in this transcontinental drama that’s a richly realized examination of the African diaspora and the often fractal nature of contemporary emigration.

 

White Shadow

WORLD PREMIERE

d: Noaz Deshe c: Hamisi Bazili, James Gayo, Glory Mbayuwayu, Salum Abdallah, Germany/Italy, Tanzania 2013, 115 min

In Tanzania, young albino Alias is on the run after witnessing his father’s murder. He finds city life as fraught with danger as the bush in this intense and stunning feature debut centering on crime perpetrated because of superstition.

 


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Weekly Review 44: CHEAP, ESCAPE, GATTACA, BARTON, DRUG, JESUS

by Posted in Weekly Review Tagged , , , , , , ,

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I’ve realized that for every movie I cross off my To Watch list, I add three more. The sad reality: I’ll never watch all the movies. Nevertheless, I can try. In theaters this week, I caught Oculus and Dom Hemingway but skipped screenings of Heaven is for Real, Neighbors and Draft Day. As is, I’ll still have another chance to see Neighbors before it hits theaters and although it’s getting fairly high praise, I’m still not sold that it’ll be anything better than slightly entertaining. At home, I had a chance to hack through a few more films that I’ve had sitting on my list, including the earlier Fast and Furious movies (I’ve finally seen them all now) and another viewing of the joyous 12 Years a Slave.

You won’t find those included here though as there’s really nothing to say about them other than they exist. 2 Fast 2 Furious isn’t as embarrassing as the name suggests, Tokyo Drift is an absolute nightmare and the near “here we go again” Fast and Furious come noticeably shy of the seduction of the last few installments. Somehow, the Rock really changes the dynamic for the best (didn’t ever expect to say that one.) Anyways, onward to some films to discuss in more detail.

DRUG WAR (2012)

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A certifiable thrill ride through the Hong-Kong underworld, this tasty piece of Chinese cinema lines up just the right amount of standoffs, fireworks and nail-biting tension and snuffs it up clean. Drug War follows a captured meth manufacturer who flips sides and helps the police take down the top dogs of his former organization over a period of 24-hours. Though Chinese film hardly makes much of a splash overseas (financially or culturally), this is one of the finest examples of Chinese filmmaking from the past 20 years. It’s China via Tarantino Bay, a one-way trip from Hong Kong to LA. Irresistibly balls-to-the-walls, Drug War charges 100 miles an hour until the brooding, bruising final moment.  

B+

BARTON FINK (1991)

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One of the more contained Coen Bros films, Barton Fink explores the creative process while confronting Judaism, New York angst and a dastardly murder. Far be it for anyone to call one of John Turturro‘s roles “normal” but this is probably the closet we get to having him playing a straight character. Cranked up on his own instinctual discontent and self-loathing ways, he’s a vessel for the Coen bros to voice their own insecurities. Hollywood’s a bitch, their film screams. It’s where creativity comes to die. Thankfully, the Coen Bros, unlike Fink, don’t bend over and take the proverbial sacking of the studio system. It’s films like this, even though it’s not their greatest work, that make us thankful that these sardonic siblings exist.

B

CHEAP THRILLS (2014)

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Fear Factor left behind the rule book in E.L. Katz‘s ultra-violent parody on American economic desperation that mixes murky morality with a heavy twist of sadism. Pat Healy puts in a monstrous performance as the film’s lead, a man on his last financial leg who runs into old buddy Vince the same night he meets a man with deep pockets set to change his life… if he’s willing to go the distance. Unlike anything else, Cheap Thrills is an unrelenting descent into the depths of how low humanity will go for money. Whether it involves fisticuffs, B&E, sex, or even auto-cannibalism, Katz’s film asks, “What is your limit?” Anchored by rock solid performances all around and a general sense of happily suspended disbelief, Cheap Thrills is over-the-top alright but in the very best of ways.

A-

ESCAPE FROM TOMORROW (2013)

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A subversive project shot guerrilla-style in the manicured “paradise” of Disneyland tries to spin a nightmare out of regulated happiness, but ends up nightmarish for all the wrong reasons. From the drooping special effects to the unbearably written and acted characters – lead by an incessantly nagging wife/mother and her drunken hubbie with rapey eyes for a pair of Parisian tweens – there’s so much to turn you off that it’s hard not to turn the movie off itself. The fact that it all adds up to pretty much nothing doesn’t help either. A failed experiment that hardly justifies the risk.

D

JESUS CAMP (2006)

 

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Captivating and horrifying in equal measure, Jesus Camp is the epitome of Christianity gone wrong. Not to bring my views on religion into the mix, but the situations depicted in this documentary are exactly the reason why any kind of full blown commitment to an ideal can be absolutely terrifying. Hearing children talk about “the enemy” (Muslims) or crying out in tongues is surely provocative footage and works like a crowbar to unsettle an audience, even if the edit is a little too much of a one-sided portrayal to really gleam much other than shock and awe. Like the Westboro Baptists, surely this sect is the exception rather than the rule. It’s still a scary reality and one that deserved to be put under the microscope for one hot minute. In the end, it’s hard to walk away from this not thinking, “Fuck Becky Fisher. Fuck Fred Phelps. Fuck Jim Jones.” The fact that the documentary lead to the closure of this particular brainwashing camp though is more than enough to legitimize its existence as a potent exposé with surprising real-world application.

B-

GATTACA (1997)

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Gattaca may be dated but the racial analogies are still as pertinent and timely as ever. Ethan Hawke plays a natural born child in an age of gene manipulation that churns out genetically superior children. Since the technology exists to shape a fetus into their most perfect possible self, those born of natural causes are considered lesser and forced to take on the underling roles in society. Its thinly veiled take on eugenics and racial inequality may be too on-the-nose but it’s an incredibly thoughtful and risky sci-fi film, especially considering it was released the same year that Starship Troopers and Batman & Robin were trolling the box office. Add to that provocative performances from Hawke and Uma Thurman and a wonderful turn from Jude Law and you have a keeper. Minus points to House Gattaca though for brazen use of shameful voiceover. New Zealand director Andrew Niccol has gone to make such smut as The Host and In Time, making this the sure pinnacle of his creative spirit. It’s just a shame that after such a victory, he would pump out work that makes us question whether he himself is an “in-valid” after all.

B

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Talking With Nick Frost of CUBAN FURY

by Posted in Interviews Tagged , , , , , ,

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You might know him as the schlubby, stoner, best friend burnout from Shaun of the Dead or the hoodwinked, adolescent dunce of a cop in Hot Fuzz but you don’t know the real Nick Frost. Sensitive, kind and sharp as a katana, Nick dreamed up an unlikely passion project in Cuban Fury, a workplace/sports comedy orbiting around the world of salsa dancing. As the film’s hero and salsa dancing extraordinaire, Nick may not be the first person you’d think of with a name like Cuban Fury but, according to him, that’s the point. It’s all about going against expectations. After all, there’s something inherently funny about watching a man of his stature throw his body around like a 120 pound Latina woman.

 

Nick and I sat down to discuss the process of making the film, working with best friends Edgar Wright and Simon Pegg, what they might all do next, cameos, writing, Ant-Man, and the big Fox pilot he’s filming this month.

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The press notes claim that the roots of the film came from a drunken email you wrote pitching the idea of you doing a dancing movie. But when did that idea come to you and made you think it would make a great movie?


Nick Frost: I think I had that idea about three years ago, but it could have been five fucking years. I think after doing Shaun of the Dead and then Hot Fuzz and Paul, the genre specific, fanboy films, which I’m very proud of and that is me, I always kinda wanted to do a dance film where I was a dancer. If you want to do something completely different and out of left field of you as a performer, doing a dance film is it for me. So I harbored that idea and my gut instinct was that it was a good idea. Because it was a good idea, every time that it knocked on my consciousness, I would say, “Fuck off” cuz it’s a good idea. I’d drive it away with a pitchfork or a flaming torch back into my subconscious. I got back from a party at like 2am and sat there and was a bit belligerent  and was like, “I’m gonna do it,” and just pitched. I wrote what I imagined the film would be in a big long email and pressed send. I woke up the next day and didn’t remember but had this weird unease that one might have if you’d french-kissed an aunt. “What have I done?” So I put my computer up and saw a message in my inbox, essentially saying, “This is a great idea. Let’s have a meeting.”

So you came up with the idea but you did not want to write the screenplay. Why was that?

NF: I couldn’t be bothered, to be honest. The thing about writing a screenplay is that you are taken out of circulation in terms of acting. Paul took so long to write. It was bitty and piece-mealy. As much as I did like writing Paul, and I’ve written two since, I found my love for it again but the thought of sitting in a room on my own writing a screenplay held noi joy for me at all. So we found John Brown who wrote the thing and we sat down and I gave him a little bible of what the story should be and my character and potential other characters and that was it. John just went and did it, he was amazing. I don’t want to overestimate my part in that, it was not much at all. John went off and delivered a great first draft and we’d give it notes or not, because it was so nice. I’m not sure I could have been like this as a younger person but if you’re getting people like John Brown in, you let him write it. You don’t fiddle with it. He’s a craftsman, a skilled writer. You have to trust these people or shut up and write it yourself.

Do you see yourself writing another screenplay in the future sometime soon or are you kind of turned off from the writing process?


NF: I just finished. I guess you never really “finish” but I’ve finished the first draft about a thing called Cockney Lump, which is about a British wrestler being induced into the hall of fame.



Are you gonna play the part?

NF: Yeah. So that’s something I’ve been working on with Studio Canal for a year or so now. There’s a nice script now. I was in Boston over Thanksgiving this year and last year and I was shooting a film with Vince Vaughn and James Marsden and I have eight days off from shooting. I don’t know anyone in Boston. I’m in a hotel like this with a bar downstairs. What I didn’t want to be doing is everyday at lunchtime going out for something to eat and a drink. What kind of life is that? You’ve got eight days off in Boston. I set up alarm at 6am and I got up and wrote for ten hours every day. I just sat there and wrote. It woke up in me the love of doing that. Since that point, I’ve kind of finished a children’s book that I was doing and I’ve written a short film that I’m gonna direct later on in the year. Just kind of got it going again.

This being a dance movie of sorts, obviously you had to cut some dope moves on the rug. How much dance rehearsal did that demand of you? I’m gonna go ahead and assume you didn’t pull the front flip off the car?

NF: I did not pull the front flip, but that’s not technically dancing. I would say that 98% of all the dancing in the film is me. I trained for six or seven hours a day for seven months before we shot a roll of film.

So are you really comfortable as a salsa dancer now?

NF: We shot that before World’s End to be honest. I had a week between wrapping that and starting World’s End and I’ve done bits and pieces here and there too. If you’re doing it seven hours a day everyday, you’re an expert for that point. But it’s like language, the longer you don’t use it, the rustier you get at it. In terms of specifics, I’m kind of pretty bad at this point. But the fiery heart of beating Latino culture is kind of there for every.

It’s just the technical aspects that fade away.

NF: Yeah, I think I’d be better than most but I couldn’t do the dances I was doing.

So you’re not gonna go do Dancing with the Stars next?

NF: I wouldn’t want to to be honest.

I wouldn’t want to see you there.

NF: On a Saturday night my mother-in-law and father-in-law will come over and my baby loves it and the whole family will just sit there and eat a curry and watch Dancing with the Stars. I think it would spoil if it had my fat, horrible fucking face gunning over an American smooth.

Talking about The World’s End, that’s the last film that you’re doing in the Cornetto trilogy with Simon Pegg and Edgar Wright. I know that you guys had this idea forever of doing the three satire, action, genre movies and now that you’ve finished that out, I hate the idea of you not collaborating again. I’m sure that you do as well since you guys are such a fantastic team. Have you tossed around ideas of when you’re gonna work together next and what it might be on?

NF: Yes, we had a great idea on the plane, as we often do. Flying from Wellington to somewhere else or Sydney to here. I’m not gonna tell you what it is, but it’s a good idea. The fact is, Simon has Mission Impossible and he’s gonna do that this year. Edgar is doing Ant-Man. I’m doing a Fox pilot with Justin Long. If that gets picked up, I’ll be out of the game for a little bit. We could of made a decision just to make a film a year that go down in terms of quality because you’re just pumping shit out because you need to feed an audience’s expectations or you can sit on an idea for four years. If we only make a film every five or six years but it’s something that people really dig, I think that’s probably better than people going off you because you do too much.

Would the next thing that you guys work together on be a sort of thematic sequel to this or would it be a whole new direction?

NF: I think it’ll be completely different.

I’m so curious. I would have to see what you guys do next. Speaking of Simon, you guys have this great onscreen chemistry but in real life, you’re also dear friends.

NF: (Shows tattoo with SP (for Simon Pegg) and EW (Edgar Wright).

Well that is just fantastic. Anytime when you’re doing a movie, you other one cameos. Is that an unspoken agreement or is that a pact. Like, “If I’m in the movie, Simon is showing up.”



NF: This just seemed kinda right for it. It took us a while to shoot that you know because we did a bunch of different versions of it. There was a version where he slowed down and said to me, “What are you doing here? Who are all these people?” And you could see the crew. I think in the edit we looked at it so many different way and the best way was the fact that he quickly drifts through frame.

It seems like you’ve got a lot on your platter coming up. What are you most excited for?

NF: Well working with Justin Long. I’ve been a fan of his and we’ve known each other for a bit. I got sent this pilot script and it was great. This is something completely different for me. I’ve never done anything like this before.

So what’s the character?

NF: His name is Robert and he’s a high-functioning alcoholic who happens to be a powerful lawyer.

Lovely.

NF: He does something quite bad and is assigned a sober companion for 90 days.

Played by Justin Long?

NF: Yeah. And this is the story.

So are you still in the development stage?



NF: Well we’re shooting the pilot at the end of the month. It’s part of the pilot season machine and then we’ll find out in May if it gets picked up.

I’m assuming that that’s also more on the comedic side?

NF: Yes it is, absolutely but when the main character is a struggling alcoholic, you can’t ignore the fact that that destroys life and affects people around him. That will be given the screen time it deserves and not just do a wacky, balls-to-the-wall “here comes the drunk guy again.” I think it’ll work if both are.

Will you be playing a Brit?

NF: Oh yeah, I’m English.

Yeah, I’ve never seen you do an American accent.

NF: “Hey man, you want a hamburger” (in an “American” accent).

It just wouldn’t feel right.

NF: There are a million America actors if you want to give it to an American actor. This is probably a limitation in me as a performer but I kind of have that weird belligerent streak of “I’m an English actor!” I think if something is set now, there’s no reason in the world why they couldn’t be English. I get if it was set in 1860 but it’s now.

Have you ever thought about going straight drama, for example Chris O’Dowd, who you co-starred with in this, just did Calvary which was very dark and grim.

NF: Absolutely. I never was trained as a comedian. I’m not a comedian, I’m just someone who has always been a funny dick and now I just get to do that as a job. In terms of people and human beings, you can be both and that’s where a lot of truth is. The crossroads between tragedy and comedy. I call it putting the fun back into funeral. A lot of the funniest times I’ve had in my life are at funerals and after funerals. One minute, you’re crying because your grandmother has died and the next minute, a group of relatives are drinking Jamesons and howling at her memory. That’s real and that’s a really real place to be.

Obviously your collaborator who you’ve worked with quite a bit, Edgar is going off to Ant-Man. There was some talks that Simon might be in a leading role there. Did they ever approach the two of you?

NF: No, it was all bullshit. We knew that it was just Edgar’s thing. When we were doing press tours for The World’s End, the joke that the three of us would share is whenever someone would ask Edgar about Ant-Man, I would take the question. “I’ll take this Edgar. I’m really pleased to be playing Hank Pym.” It would really make him laugh. But it’s Edgar’s project really. Scott Pilgrim wasn’t a lesser film because me and Simon weren’t the vegan police.

Maybe it was…

NF: That film was fantastic without us in it and the same with Ant-Man, it’ll be fantastic without us in it.

Would you do maybe a high-budget, tentpole, Marvel-type situation? Could you ever see that in your future?

NF: Who would that be, if I’m just being pragmatic about it.

Well maybe not necessarily in the starring role.

NF: Well yeah, absolutely and I would love to do it. It would be a lot of fun. But in terms of playing a lead in something like that, who would it be? The Rhino?

Paul Giamatti’s already got that one.

NF: I think I need to be aware of my limitations as a human being and Hollywood’s expectation of what they’re willing to spend $150 dollars on.

 

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Out in Theaters: OCULUS

by Posted in Out in Theaters Tagged , , , , , , , , 20 Comments

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My girlfriend is afraid of mirrors once it’s dark. She’ll slink uneasily past them at night or throw a switch to blanket them in florescent light. When she’s staying in new places, she’ll turn foreign mirrors towards the wall before sleeping so they don’t dare reflect back under cover of dark. Early years spent reciting “Bloody Mary” have taken their toll.

Like a malevolent Cinderella story, once the clock strikes sundown, mirrors do take on an evil – or at least eerie – quality. In the absence of light, reflections don’t read true. Cast in shadow and peppered with hazy contortions, fear lives in not being able to see things clearly. It’s the absence of yourself – the shadowed dimples and half-worn portrait – in the mirror’s reflection that’s unsettling; the distortion of what ought be.

Years of horror shlock that made us shout, “Don’t close that mirror, there’s someone behind you!” – one of the oldest tricks in the book – have spoiled the mirror reveal. There’s always something that wasn’t there. Then it’s gone. We’ve been equally worn down on mirrored reflections changing their pantomime, refusing to mimic its subject and subsequently frightening them into a Hollywood favorite; the mouth-covering gasp. It’s old. Mirrors, in their slim margin of possibility, have been tilled into a desert of scares, all but relegated to the corner of slipshod horror no-no’s. Oculus sets to right the course.

Mousey children reciting folklore hymns have made the mirror the perfect vestige to express a cultural fear of the unknown and it’s this unknown that Oculus takes advantage of. While Obsidian mirrors date back to 6000 BC (Dragonstone mirrors? How could that not be creepy?), the mirror in question here looks oaken – strong, sturdy, old wood. It’s stained dark and carved with decadent inlay, curving and twisting like the horns of a demon. At first glance, it perfectly fits the part of haunted mirror, however absurd such a MacGuffin might be.

Though Oculus presents the fantasy of haunted mirrors as fact, it gives the audience credit in doubting said facts. Tim Russell (Brenton Thwaites) is the vessel for such doubt. After a traumatic event early in his and sister’s Kaylie’s (Karen Gillan) childhood, Tim is sent to a mental hospital to unlearn the “facts” that he had convinced himself of – that a haunted mirror possessed his father into killing his mother.

The stooges at the mental lockup have indoctrinated him otherwise (is there anything less trustworthy than a horror movie psychologist?) and his newfound predilection towards disbelief becomes the film’s first albatross. Kaylie sets out to show Tim that he was never crazy, having recently come into possession of the mirror and dead set on them destroying it once and for all.

But like anything haunted, it’s never as easy as just taking an axe to the thing and turning it to splinters. Instead, the mirror has a will of its own. And like the one ring to rule them all, it sets out to get what it wants by a form of unspoken mind control. Rory Cochrane as the father of the young siblings is the mirror’s first mark and his descend into madness harkens to the shuddersome ambiance of the Overlook. Emulating the best of Jack Nicholson’s iconic performance and the worst of sanity-slinking Jack Torrence, Cochrane’s performance is easy to have fun with. He is unsettling wallpaper as a vessel of psychological horror and domestic abuse both with his uneasy relationship with wife Marie (Katee Sackhoff) working to up the stakes scene to scene.

A tactful script from Mike Flanaghan (pulling double duties as director) saturates the reined-in proceedings with disqueting and sordid exposition. While Gillan’s airless portrait of Kaylie leaves little room for character growth, it paints a nimble picture of a sacrosanct devotee to her unpopular convictions. “What’s happening is real.” At least someone knows what’s going on. Like the great heroines of late, she’s a woman on a mission and listening to her report her findings is one of the many joys of Flanaghan’s insoluble narrative web.

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Though Tim’s journey is more arc-y than Kaylie’s, his is underwhelmingly performed. So it’s a bit of a disappointment that the franchise’s future lay at his feet. It’s hard not to look at his situation and quiver though. It’s like a life lived practicing forced atheism only to stare God in the face. Shitty.

The best scenes in the movie are born of this somewhat novel idea of auto-voyueirsm – where the characters are watching themselves, unsure of whether they are where they think they are or if they’re trapped in the bodies that they’re looking at. It sounds confusing but Flanaghan makes it work well on screen. This crafty visual twist presents a Shrodinger’s Cat issue. Once the mirror takes hold, there’s no way to tell what’s make believe and what’s reality and that opens a lot of doors for the audience.

Flanaghan’s other great achievement is in the pacing department as he’s born a film that slides along like its riding KY Jelly roller-skates. It’s also unlikely to gross you out which can be a bit of a double-edged sword in the horror community, in that it will only slightly satisfy horror buff’s effusive need for bloodletting. Smartly, it’s always ranking the huh? over the gore.

Every once in a while a movie comes along that’s so terrifying that it slips into your dreams, taints your nightmares and has you looking cockeyed at creeks in the night. Oculus is not that film. Happy to be a well manicured vestige of frights, where dread prevails over scares, it’s pecking order rightly starts at the noggin. It’s more Psycho in nature than Scream, heralding suspense and mood building as models of import over attempts to sporadically lift you from you seat with a bump and a shout.

Oculus does for mirrors what Hitchcock did for showers. We’re not afraid of them, they’re just a little creepier now.

B

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Out in Theaters: DRAFT DAY

by Posted in Out in Theaters Tagged , , , , , , ,

 

“Draft Day”
Directed by Ivan Reitman
Starring Kevin Costner, Jennifer Garner, Chadwick Boseman, Frank Langella, Sean Combs
Sports, Drama
120 Mins
PG-13

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Every year, one sports movie comes out of nowhere to become a classic. Last year, that honor belonged to Ron Howard’s Rush. This year, that honor might belong to Draft Day.

 

Rarely do I find myself enjoying Chris Berman’s blowhard baritone. Yet, something about hearing his voice as shots of the NFL Draft at Radio City in New York fly by made my heart beat. Draft Day, a propaganda film of the most subtle kind, calls upon an inner craving for America’s greatest sport in a time of absence: football.

Kevin Costner is back to star in another sports movie, this time as Sonny Weaver Jr., the Cleveland Browns’ general manager and chief decision-maker. Cleveland hasn’t been good at football, well, seemingly ever. With a top-10 draft pick and a chance to change the franchise forever, pressure mounts for Costner and his girlfriend Jennifer Garner, the team’s Salary Cap Manager who’s pregnant with his baby and salary cap knowledge.

Shit’s hitting the fan for Costner, who must decide between three players: the ‘local legacy,’ the ‘star QB’ and the ‘hardworking heart kid.’ Things start off pretty rough: he trades away three 1st round draft picks to get the 1st overall pick. Players rage over the decision, coaches applaud, Twitter explodes and the team’s owner (Frank Langella) tells Costner his job’s on the line.

Of course, there are other problems going on here too. Costner’s not ready to be a dad as his father just passed away, his secretary’s on vacation, and he just can’t figure out what to do with that top button on his dress shirt. To non-football fans, there’s enough fluff (a ticking clock, beautiful people and a decent romance) to make it worthwhile. Don’t get me wrong though: this movie is 100% football.

Aerials of football stadiums across the nation (notably CenturyLink Field in Seattle) fly you right into the action—there’s no better way to set the stage than a team’s home stadium and screaming fans. Coaches and General Managers cuss each other out over salary cap numbers, draft picks, and young football players with two first names.

Whether it’s incredibly real football highlights of young players concussing each other at game-speed or real-life talking heads going at it (the aforementioned Chris Berman, Mel Kiper, Jon Gruden and Deion Sanders to name a few), everything looks, smells, feels, tastes and sounds real. Filmed at the actual 2013 NFL Draft and on location at the Browns’ headquarters, NFL’s got its ‘authentic’ stamp all over it. Even NFL star running back Arian Foster shows up to act. Draft Day gets adrenaline flowing like Opening Day.

Only, watching Draft Day is like working your ass off all preseason only to tear your ACL stretching before the first game of the year—well, except for the excruciating pain part. There’s so much football that you’re left with a massive pair of blue balls once you realize that there’s no actual football in it. It’s more offseason than regular season: it’s a two-hour foreplay session with Kate Upton. Hey, at the end of the day you’re still hooking up with Kate Upton.

Draft Day wants you to lust after it—the fame, the flair, the football. Stadiums and team buildings are gorgeous, the actors are all handsome, New York’s lights shine off of players’ bleach-white teeth. It’s The Blind Side from the hind side, Jerry Maguire if Tom Cruise could sext.

Seriously, everyone’s in this movie. Kevin Costner, Jennifer Garner, Chadwick Boseman (Jackie Robinson in last year’s decent 42), Frank Langella, Denis Leary and P.Diddy/Sean Combs/Diddy Combs even pulls a Jay-Z to act as the potential number one draft pick’s slimy agent.

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Costner looks like Brett Favre and plays like Andrew Luck. He wields a football like a NYPD Chief brandishes a .45 caliber pistol. His grizzled look that didn’t work in 3 Days To Kill works well in the confines of a football compound, his cool demeanor amplifying as time begins to run out while rumors and numbers fly all around him. Costner’s calm in the huddle, a flawed but passionate quarterback leading his team through the tunnel. He makes random decisions on the fly, tosses draft picks around like hot cakes and lays his balls on the table at every moment. He’s so jittery and reckless you figure he might be high on painkillers: he’s Whim Irsay.

On the other side of the spectrum acting spectrum we find Garner, who seems completely out of place and out-matched by her peers. Garner’s repeated attempts at realistic football-speak end up sounding more like she’s reading factoids off the back of a Wheaties box. She brings the movie down.

Chadwick Boseman’s role is notable here. As Ohio State Linebacker Vontae Mack (the aforementioned ‘hardworking heart kid’), he’s thrilling. His manner is completely changed from 42, he’s much more light-hearted and clever. His relationship with Costner is almost father-son, calling on him for help when he needs it and throwing a tantrum when he doesn’t get what he wants. Boseman might be the best in this movie.

As the clock hits zero, Draft Day will likely go down as the year’s best sports movie. Though non-football fans might find it a hard pill to swallow, the elements of a great story are there in spades. For football fans, this film will be like watching the Food Channel on a diet. Draft Day always plays more like fantasy football than real football. It might be more addicting.

Another Sunday’s come and gone without pigskin. How many weeks till football?

B+