Sunday, March 21, 2010
Friday, March 19, 2010
REVIEW: The Ghost Writer
If talent could be used as bail, possible criminal/definite genius Roman Polanski would be set for life. In honor of the man's boundless artistic achievements, I refuse to devote any more space to an examination of his personal life. However, before I start the review of his latest, The Ghost Writer, let me state that Chinatown, the last mystery film Polanski directed, is easily one of my favorite films of all time. Every facet of that masterwork-from the dialogue to the story structure to the visual language-has irrevocably influenced the way I write about and view films, among other things. So this one had lots of hype to live up to...
I can happily report it pretty much does. The Ghost Writer is an instant classic, a tour de force of slow-build suspense and social commentary. It's the story of The Ghost (Ewan McGregor), a fledgling writer who holes up in a compound with ex-British-prime minster Adam Lang (Pierce Brosnan), his wife Ruth (Olivia Williams) and his secretary Amelia (Kim Cattrall) to help the former PM with his memoirs. Before long, The Ghost's research leads him down a darker-than-expected path, and things start to go horribly wrong...I won't say anymore, especially because this film contains a whopper of a final twist on par with that Holy Grail of Gotcha Endings, The Usual Suspects. Let's talk instead about Polanski's brilliant approach to the material. The film seems, at first, deceptively simple. As The Ghost settles into his job, we get a series of small, austere scenes establishing life at the compound-the cook make prepares some sandwiches, Lang walks about talking (sometimes agitatedly) on his cell phone, security guards pace about, running a little drill every now and then. You're conscious, even frustrated at the lack of tension until you realize what the director is doing-putting us in the characters shoes. By outlining, in tasteful, telling brushstrokes, the details of this strange, isolated life, Polanski is letting the drabness and claustrophobia of it seep into our bones. I always have believed people draw energy, negative or positive, from their surroundings. Wonder why some mechanics are grumpy? They spend their days surrounded by agitated or puzzled folks, stuck in hot, smelly garages-they're encircled by unhappiness, so it's how they feel. By this same logic, the compound turns these people as strange and stormy as their habitat. Now that Polanski's established every thread of this intricate rug, it's time to pull it out-soon, this quartet is caught up in an emotional hurricane of old secrets and shaky allegiances, but film's transition from character study to thriller is so subtle that you don't notice it until you check your pulse-its sped up a few notches. The film's middle section is a marvelous maze of withering gazes, haunting conversations, and red herrings. Still, just you wait-it's the 3rd act where the film really shines. As the Ghost uncovers more and more shocking evidence, Polanski shortens the shot lengths, Alexandre Desplat amps up his beautifully brooding score, and we race towards a classic finale of volcanic revelations, coming so fast and in such great number that you've got to catch your breath to keep up with the sheer crackpot brilliance of it all. I don't feel the need to talk much about the actors. Polanski always gets great performances out of his cast, and this picture is no exception; what we have hear is a flawless ensemble. However, special props to Pierce Brosnan, taking the role of a lifetime and running with it, sinking all of his considerable charisma and energy into the part. And God bless Olivia Williams, whose fearless work here ought to finally earn one of my favorite actresses the attention she deserves. From its opening shot, an audience grabber if I ever saw one, to its chilling, wordless final tableau, The Ghost Writer draws it's gut-punching power from the high-chemistry cast in front of the camera, and the balls-out genius behind it. This doesn't top Chinatown. I doubt if anything ever will. But it's a film that, along with a select few others, deserves to be mentioned in the same breath as that flawless classic. A.
I can happily report it pretty much does. The Ghost Writer is an instant classic, a tour de force of slow-build suspense and social commentary. It's the story of The Ghost (Ewan McGregor), a fledgling writer who holes up in a compound with ex-British-prime minster Adam Lang (Pierce Brosnan), his wife Ruth (Olivia Williams) and his secretary Amelia (Kim Cattrall) to help the former PM with his memoirs. Before long, The Ghost's research leads him down a darker-than-expected path, and things start to go horribly wrong...I won't say anymore, especially because this film contains a whopper of a final twist on par with that Holy Grail of Gotcha Endings, The Usual Suspects. Let's talk instead about Polanski's brilliant approach to the material. The film seems, at first, deceptively simple. As The Ghost settles into his job, we get a series of small, austere scenes establishing life at the compound-the cook make prepares some sandwiches, Lang walks about talking (sometimes agitatedly) on his cell phone, security guards pace about, running a little drill every now and then. You're conscious, even frustrated at the lack of tension until you realize what the director is doing-putting us in the characters shoes. By outlining, in tasteful, telling brushstrokes, the details of this strange, isolated life, Polanski is letting the drabness and claustrophobia of it seep into our bones. I always have believed people draw energy, negative or positive, from their surroundings. Wonder why some mechanics are grumpy? They spend their days surrounded by agitated or puzzled folks, stuck in hot, smelly garages-they're encircled by unhappiness, so it's how they feel. By this same logic, the compound turns these people as strange and stormy as their habitat. Now that Polanski's established every thread of this intricate rug, it's time to pull it out-soon, this quartet is caught up in an emotional hurricane of old secrets and shaky allegiances, but film's transition from character study to thriller is so subtle that you don't notice it until you check your pulse-its sped up a few notches. The film's middle section is a marvelous maze of withering gazes, haunting conversations, and red herrings. Still, just you wait-it's the 3rd act where the film really shines. As the Ghost uncovers more and more shocking evidence, Polanski shortens the shot lengths, Alexandre Desplat amps up his beautifully brooding score, and we race towards a classic finale of volcanic revelations, coming so fast and in such great number that you've got to catch your breath to keep up with the sheer crackpot brilliance of it all. I don't feel the need to talk much about the actors. Polanski always gets great performances out of his cast, and this picture is no exception; what we have hear is a flawless ensemble. However, special props to Pierce Brosnan, taking the role of a lifetime and running with it, sinking all of his considerable charisma and energy into the part. And God bless Olivia Williams, whose fearless work here ought to finally earn one of my favorite actresses the attention she deserves. From its opening shot, an audience grabber if I ever saw one, to its chilling, wordless final tableau, The Ghost Writer draws it's gut-punching power from the high-chemistry cast in front of the camera, and the balls-out genius behind it. This doesn't top Chinatown. I doubt if anything ever will. But it's a film that, along with a select few others, deserves to be mentioned in the same breath as that flawless classic. A.
Wednesday, March 17, 2010
REVIEWS: SHUTTER ISLAND, A PROPHET
A PROPHET
Sometimes I wonder if critics around a movie just because they can--as a ritualistic display of artier-than-thou snootiness. It was the case with last years meandering A Christmas Tale and to a greater degree with this years brutal slog of a gangster film called A Prophet. Told in short, shaky-cam vignettes, mostly urgently whispered two-person conversations punctuated by bursts of ugly violence, the film relays the story of Malik (Tahar Rahim), a young Arab prisoner who, through sheer opportunistic chutzpah, manages to climb to the top of the Corsican crime scene despite rarely leaving his cell. It's a damn good plot, and as Malik orchestrates his rise, director Jacques Audiard makes sure to include plenty of dime-a-dozen crime movie details-the bullet-riddled bodies, the cheap hookers, the copious drug use-but leaves out what makes sinful sagas like Goodfellas and The Godfather great-humanity. We don't like Malik, which is okay. We didn't like Daniel Plainview. We damn sure didn't like Anton Chigurh. But those antiheroes were people-human beings who, despite their string of sadistic acts, paused for intriguing moments of pity, self-examination, even regret. No such attempt is made to make Malik into a three-dimensional human. He's simply a blank-faced bad boy who does bad things with no remorse, and in return receives good things, none of which produce any sort of reaction from him either. Critics have hailed Audiard's decision to make Malik an "enigma"-I say the director's decision to rob his lead of any personality renders his film inert and, yes, endless. There is one saving grace here-Niels Arestrup. As one of the many crime kingpins Malik knocks down on his way to the top, Arestrup's voice is filled with gravelly authority, his eyes alight with the impassioned dignity of a wounded animal. But even his presence works against the film-I kept thinking how I'd much rather see a movie about this man. I can't fault Audiard and co. for their ambition, but I think if they'd tried a tad less harder to make a modern masterpiece, they just might've churned one out. C-.
SHUTTER ISLAND
Scorsese's gone all Kubrick on us. The moody spirit of the late Shining director hangs like a foreboding raincloud overShutter Island, an enjoyably preposterous, impressively directed piece of slow-build paranoia-mongering that's more white-knuckle fun than a film set in an insane asylum has any right to be. You've seen the previews, you know the plot-Leo Dicaprio and Mark Ruffalo are Boston marshals (sorry, "mahshals"), sent to the titular institution-a treatment center for the criminally insane-to hunt for a missing patient. That's the Twitter-friendly version. Our heroes soon get caught up in a complicated web of conspiracy theories involving concentration camps, lobotomies, hallucinogens, and the very nature of the human mind. Yeah, yeah, the far-flung story's like something out of a 1950's shlock pic, but thanks to Scorsese, it transcends its campy roots. He's firing on all cylinders here, using every trick in the filmmaking book-playing with time and space, color and focus, light and sound-to set our blood racing. He's always understood better than anyone else how the movies move-how to take the rhythm of the soundtrack and the movement of the camera and synchronize them for the desired effect. Thanks to the indefatigable, highly skilled man at the helm of this flick, Shutter Island comes off as a series of thoroughly enjoyable suspense setpieces. At the center of it all is DiCaprio, whose presence elevates the film from merely "good" to "very good". This is the kind of work Oscars are made for. The performance is stunning in its emotional nakedness; not since Chinatown has it been such a pleasure watching a tight-wound character come gloriously, messily undone on screen. But even DiCaprio can't rescue the film from its third-act, which, sinks under the weight of far too much telling and very little showing, as well as a tacked-on, "deep" coda that wasn't needed to begin with. Still, to see a genius like Scorsese at the height of his considerable powers is a helluva springtime treat-even if its only for 2/3rds of the picture. B+
Sometimes I wonder if critics around a movie just because they can--as a ritualistic display of artier-than-thou snootiness. It was the case with last years meandering A Christmas Tale and to a greater degree with this years brutal slog of a gangster film called A Prophet. Told in short, shaky-cam vignettes, mostly urgently whispered two-person conversations punctuated by bursts of ugly violence, the film relays the story of Malik (Tahar Rahim), a young Arab prisoner who, through sheer opportunistic chutzpah, manages to climb to the top of the Corsican crime scene despite rarely leaving his cell. It's a damn good plot, and as Malik orchestrates his rise, director Jacques Audiard makes sure to include plenty of dime-a-dozen crime movie details-the bullet-riddled bodies, the cheap hookers, the copious drug use-but leaves out what makes sinful sagas like Goodfellas and The Godfather great-humanity. We don't like Malik, which is okay. We didn't like Daniel Plainview. We damn sure didn't like Anton Chigurh. But those antiheroes were people-human beings who, despite their string of sadistic acts, paused for intriguing moments of pity, self-examination, even regret. No such attempt is made to make Malik into a three-dimensional human. He's simply a blank-faced bad boy who does bad things with no remorse, and in return receives good things, none of which produce any sort of reaction from him either. Critics have hailed Audiard's decision to make Malik an "enigma"-I say the director's decision to rob his lead of any personality renders his film inert and, yes, endless. There is one saving grace here-Niels Arestrup. As one of the many crime kingpins Malik knocks down on his way to the top, Arestrup's voice is filled with gravelly authority, his eyes alight with the impassioned dignity of a wounded animal. But even his presence works against the film-I kept thinking how I'd much rather see a movie about this man. I can't fault Audiard and co. for their ambition, but I think if they'd tried a tad less harder to make a modern masterpiece, they just might've churned one out. C-.
SHUTTER ISLAND
Scorsese's gone all Kubrick on us. The moody spirit of the late Shining director hangs like a foreboding raincloud overShutter Island, an enjoyably preposterous, impressively directed piece of slow-build paranoia-mongering that's more white-knuckle fun than a film set in an insane asylum has any right to be. You've seen the previews, you know the plot-Leo Dicaprio and Mark Ruffalo are Boston marshals (sorry, "mahshals"), sent to the titular institution-a treatment center for the criminally insane-to hunt for a missing patient. That's the Twitter-friendly version. Our heroes soon get caught up in a complicated web of conspiracy theories involving concentration camps, lobotomies, hallucinogens, and the very nature of the human mind. Yeah, yeah, the far-flung story's like something out of a 1950's shlock pic, but thanks to Scorsese, it transcends its campy roots. He's firing on all cylinders here, using every trick in the filmmaking book-playing with time and space, color and focus, light and sound-to set our blood racing. He's always understood better than anyone else how the movies move-how to take the rhythm of the soundtrack and the movement of the camera and synchronize them for the desired effect. Thanks to the indefatigable, highly skilled man at the helm of this flick, Shutter Island comes off as a series of thoroughly enjoyable suspense setpieces. At the center of it all is DiCaprio, whose presence elevates the film from merely "good" to "very good". This is the kind of work Oscars are made for. The performance is stunning in its emotional nakedness; not since Chinatown has it been such a pleasure watching a tight-wound character come gloriously, messily undone on screen. But even DiCaprio can't rescue the film from its third-act, which, sinks under the weight of far too much telling and very little showing, as well as a tacked-on, "deep" coda that wasn't needed to begin with. Still, to see a genius like Scorsese at the height of his considerable powers is a helluva springtime treat-even if its only for 2/3rds of the picture. B+
Monday, March 15, 2010
REVIEW: ALICE IN WONDERLAND
Tim Burton and Lewis Carroll are two LSD addled peas in a pod, each the nutty Master of All Things Macabre for their respective generations. So you'd think Burton's adaptation of Caroll's magnum opus would pan out wonderfully onscreen, right? Somehow, wrong. In telling the world famous, darkly comic tale of Alice (Mia Wasikowka's) journey down a rabbit hole and into a lopsided alternate universe (I won't provide a synopsis, you know the rest), Burton and his cast and crew occasionally strike brilliant notes, but thanks to some key missteps this one's mostly discordant noise. Disney tries to kiddify things, attempting to impart morals and purpose into a story that lacks both. Oh well, I expected that. There's a weird, jarringly adult subplot about Alice's brother-in-law, but its brief enough that I suppose I could ignore it if necessary. But the real nail in the coffin here is a huge conceptual mistake was glaringly apparent to me from the film's opening scenes. Alice, normally a child of about eight or nine, is aged about ten years here, on the cusp of adulthood. This film finds her returning to Wonderland-Underland, as it's called here-for a second visit, not out of curiosity, but to flee the life of sexual frustration and societal pressure that she's stuck with back home in stone-faced 19th century England. I don't know who came up with this idea. Was it Burton? Or screenwriter Linda Woolverton? Either way, it's a stupefyingly dumb clunker of a choice that damn near becomes the pictures Achilles heel. Alice is not just a character whose seeing the world through a strange new looking-glass-she's our looking glass, whose wonderment and dread become ours precisely because this is all new to her-her childlike delight allows us to absorb the story with the rapt attention and excitement of youth. Here, however, she's an agitated teen who isn't any happier about being in Underland than she was about being on Earth. Despite all the techno-wonders Burton and co. surround her with-and, make no mistake, the film looks great, an explosion of gothic, surreal splendor rendered in a panoply of eye-pleasing colors-she's constantly whining about how the place is just a bad dream, one from which she can't wait to wake up. Oh, what fun! We're discovering a brave new world with a tour guide who...couldn't care less. It's like going on vacation with that one relative who bitches about everything from the hotel room to the waiting lines-who cares what the destination is? The journey's not gonna be much fun when you take an albatross like that along. Soon, Alice's exaggerated mopiness gets grating, then infuriating, and, finally, escalates to the level where I whispered "Shut up!" under my breath, as if to will her into silence. Perhaps this approach might have worked best in a sequel to this film (Caroll tried said approach in his sequel to the book), when we, like Alice, had already gotten to know the world. As it is, this is our first go 'round, and because she's jaded, so are we. But now I'M getting jaded, so let's talk about some of the pluses here-and there are a few. First and foremost are the delightful trio of actors you've seen on all the posters-Johnny Depp, Anne Hathaway, and Helena Bonham Carter. Depp's Mad Hatter is a lisping, accent-juggling delight. The man's always been a little loony, but here it's as if he's been freed from any tethers of human normalcy-when he delivers the famous quote about the raven and the writing-desk, you chuckle because it's actually the sanest thing he's said thus far. Hathaway's White Queen exudes imperial majesty and a surprising twinge of maternal warmth. But Bonham Carter gets best in show-her evil monarch is the ultimate Queen Bitch, dishing out verbal lashings with an icy, poker-faced abandon that inspires great big audience belly-laughs even as it condemns onscreen characters to the most dismal of fates. Also worth mentioning are the special effects-the CGI animals are so flesh-and-bone realistic that they make those Narnian beavers look like sock puppets, and Bonham Carter's massive cranium is a massive technical achievement. Danny Elfman's score, creepy and choir-heavy, lends the right touch of eerie beauty to DP Darius Wolski's sweeping shots of Burton's ingeniously designed locales. But just as you're getting into the awe of it all, along comes that bitchy Alice girl to pout and pout and pout, until ultimately you just long to be back in your own world. Carroll enthusiasts and Burton lovers should check it out on DVD (the 3D adds next to nothing here). The rest of you can do without. C+
Saturday, March 6, 2010
PRE-OSCAR RANTING (Post-Oscar Bitching to Follow)
Ladies and gents, the Oscars are upon us, where we honor....some of the best films of the year. Not the actual best, God forbid; my favorite film of 09, the surprisingly raw, incomparably visionary Where the Wild Things Are, was 100% shut out, and my second fav, the everything-old-is-new-again triumph An Education, hasn't even a decent shot at a win. But nonetheless, let's talk about who WILL win, and also, who should.
Best Picture:
WHO WILL WIN: There is some genuine possibility of an upset here. While many predict a Hurt Locker win, I'm going to truly go out on a limb and predict that the Academy's wonky new voting system (which has the viewers rank the films and then gives second-place movie a bit of a boost), will cause an upset-my final pick is Avatar, though Inglourious Basterds has a phenomenal shot, too.
WHO SHOULD: An Education. Having said that, I fell for Avatar no matter how hard I tried to apply my own brand of vitriol-glazed cynicism to it, and I wouldn't mind seeing it get some Best Picture love, either. Hurt Locker was riveting and commendably realistic, but its lack of emotional pull and bitchy campaign snafu have me rooting against it.
Best Actor:
WHO WILL WIN: I'd bet my car, my DVD collection, and all my autographed Playbills that Jeff Bridges will win for his work as a sad-sack, beer-bellied country singer in Crazy Heart.
WHO SHOULD WIN: George Clooney for Up In The Air. He tore this performance from his gut, really pushed himself; for the first time, we see the soulful human chinks in his suit of Slick-Rick movie star armor.
Best Actress
WHO WILL WIN: Lots of people predict a Sandra Bullock win (Why, God, why?) But, honestly (and I'm not just saying this because Streep's Julia Child was my favorite female performance in about five or six years), I think Streep's going to win. She hasn't in 30 years, and as she inches closer to ultimate retirement, and then to death, and then to becoming the Archangel of acting Heaven (hopefully they forgive her Mamma Mia!), Oscar's gonna want to give her one more golden statue.
WHO SHOULD WIN: The same as who will. Meryl drove the film, exuding a warm, red-blooded life force that's as infectious as it is unwavering and true.
Best Supporting Actor:
WHO WILL WIN: Christoph Waltz, for his catchphrase-usin', milk-lovin', foot-fetish bearin' Nazi madman in Tarantino's revenge epic Inglourious Basterds.
WHO SHOULD WIN: Same dude who will. This man doesn't just chew the scenery; he swallows it whole. A glouriously over-the-top, once-in-a-lifetime perf.
Best Supporting Actress:
WHO WILL WIN: Mo'nique, as a mad mother who hurls insults and utensils with equal monstrous aplomb, then shocks us by reveal a pathetic scrap of soul, inPrecious.
WHO SHOULD WIN: Mo'nique. Some of the best work of the last decade.
Best Director:
WILL WIN: Kathryn Bigelow; Don't get me started. She did a good job with a good action film. But so could about a hundred other directors. How about pick Spike Jonze, who visionary approach to Where the Wild Things Are gave the movie most of its oomph? Or JJ Abrams, whose Star Trek was such a blast? Oh, wait. You didn't even NOMINATE them. But Bigelow will win because a female victory in the category is a first. What a shame that the first Oscar or a female director is given to someone infinitely less deserving than, say, a Barbra Streisand, Jane Campion, or Nora Ephron.
SHOULD WIN: Meh. Like I said, the deserving ones were mostly snubbed. Hollywood's awesomest asshole, James Cameron, put over 15 years into the flawed but wildly involving Avatar. A for effort.
Best Animated Feature:
WILL AND SHOULD: UP. And Dug the Dog better make the acceptance spee-SQUIRREL!
So there you have it. Questions? Comments? Death threats?
Go right ahead.
Sunday, February 7, 2010
BEST OF THE NOUGHTIES: REDUX.
In my mad dash to get a Best of the Decade list out before...well, the end of the decade, I realize some serious flaws in my decisions. Mainly though, the change comes because early this month, I saw a film that stood far and above any other offer of the past ten years....so, trying this again:
ORIGINAL:
"11"-Almost Famous
10-Rachel Getting Married
9-Collateral
8-Million Dollar Baby
7- There Will Be Blood
6-Atonement
5-A Priarie Home Companion
4. LOTR trilogy
3. Gangs of New York
2. Moulin Rouge!
1. Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon/Brokeback Mountain
NEWBIES:
11. REPLACEMENT: THE WRESTLER. Above all, movies should be human. They should treat their characters with understanding, as flawed human beings drawn toward light and darkness instead of stereotypes who side with either black or white. This simple, indelible hour-and-forty-minutes tells the tale of Randy the Ram (Mickey Rourke, in a career-capping tour de force), a burnt out wrestler who still beats other men to bloody pulp to feel alive, but whose strange, less-casual-than-it-seems relationship with an aging stripper (Marisa Tomei), has the potential to save his soul. Screenwriter Robert Siegel and director Darren Aronofsky have created a quietly devastating portrait of a man and woman who, for a fleeting moment, break free of their glass cases of self-imposed loneliness and feel the warmth of human connection shine upon them like the sun. We are moved when they find happiness oncemore, and something inside us tears as we see them lose sight of it all over again. A brutally honest piece of work that relates its story with deep understanding and rough-hewn beauty. I find myself crying during those final minutes every time.
3. REPLACEMENT: KILL BILL SAGA. The past decade saw the maturation of the cinema's token man-child. In this film (for it is truly ONE FILM), and his "Inlgourious Basterds", Tarantino digs deeper, emotionally and psychologically, than he ever did in his stylish, wham-bam 90's pictures-not that I have anything against those. For me, this, the B-movie-gone-big story of a bride (Uma Thurman), out to strike down those who gunned down her and her unborn child at her wedding, is his greatest achievement, a blood-soaked work of sound and fury that finds him in peak form and total control of even the tiniest nuance. Rumor has it this one was initially created as a project QT could use to woo Thurman. Whether or not that's what its started out as, it became so much more. The pulp-perfect dialogue is here, sprinkled with pop culture references that feel less forced and more relevant than those in Pulp Fiction and Reservoir Dogs. The typical aural hodgepodge of surfer rock, Morricone, and alt-pop has never worked better. Lenser Robert Richardson exhausts his bag of tricks, shooting overexposed, in moody black and white, in Sergio sepia; the film is a joy to look at. Performances are all knockouts; Tarantino always brings out the best in his actors, and Thurman, Daryl Hannah, Michael Madsen, Lucy Liu, and Vivica Fox all astound, though these films really belong to David Carradine as the title character and instigator of the aforementioned massacre; his world-weary wit and quiet fury give these stories unexpected spiritual and emotional heft, all the more reason to miss this entertainment legend. The action scenes play like gangbusters, and pulsate with the hot blood of ingenuity; Tarantino's done quickie shoot-outs and torture scenes, but here, as Thurman's pissed-off Bride takes out scores of Yakuza hard-cases with nothing but a Hanzo sword and balls of steel, we at least get the glourious experience of seeing the man go full-on kung-fu. But what sets this saga apart from the everyday boom-boom-pow pack is it's intelligence; there's a keen insightfulness at work that sneaks up on you. Tarantino's advancing his characters stories while simultaneously examining their souls, providing us glimpses into the troubled psyches of cold-blooded mercenaries whose biggest regret is that they can't outrun their conscience, and oh, what a fascinating experience it is to what it catch up with them. "That girl deserves her revenge", says Madsen's Budd, "and we all deserve to die". Damn straight. Find me another action movie that breaks your heart and busts your gut, or just sit back, shut up and take this one in.
1. REPLACEMENT (YOU READ THAT RIGHT): Synecdoche, New York
You haven't heard of it. Maybe you read some of the scathing reviews heaped upon it by skeptics. Or you've seen the DVD cover, with it's cryptic panorama of a blimp slicing through the skyline of an eerily empty metropolis. But you probably haven't had the opportunity to get lost in Charlie Kaufman's fantastic fever dream of a film, a poignant modern-day tragedy that draws its oomph from its sheer emotional power. "Synecdoche" is the tale of a man who, in the process of attempting to understand his life, forgets to live it; who, in his desperate quest to assign meaning to his existence, robs himself of that which means most to him. This man is Caden Cotard (Phillip Seymour Hoffman). Pushing forty, his body decaying, his mind immersed in his work, his personal life a wreckage, he comes up with a gonzo-crazy-brilliant idea; he will create a life-size replica of his native New York, and populate with it with actors portraying real-life people he knows, so that he may understand them, and thus fix his fractured world. But understanding still eludes him; not only can he not make sense of the people in his life, he finds that he can't break through to the actors he's hired. So he hires actors to play his actors. When this fails, he hires actors to play the actors who are playing his real-life acquaintances, then actors to play THOSE actors, and so on and so forth until his dreamworld turns into a vast, overcrowded nightmare, a hotbed of unfulfilled longing and confusion where fact and fiction spill over into each other with disturbing results. If it weren't such a transporting drama, it would've made a damn good horror film, huh? Just a thought. Since it's a film about the art of performance, nothing less than a once-in-a-lifetime cast would've done. Good thing Kaufman's got one. This is the kind of film where, just as you've pegged your favorite character, a new one comes along to pull the rug out. You're drawn into the struggle of Caden's wife, Adele (Catherine The Goddess Keener), fighting to reconcile her artistic fantasies with her matriarchal realities; but then you meet Samantha Morton's endearingly nutty Hazel, Caden's Girl That Got Away and long for her presence, not just because she's a beacon of light in a pitch-black story but because we ache for these two to be together; but wait, when Caden gets married again, we get hooked into the stormy, strange currents sent out by his second wife, Claire (Michelle Williams, the best brooder the movies have given us in a while); but ho, there! What about that actor Caden hires to play himself (a wonderfully creepy discovery named Tom Noonan)? Or the brittle old stage warhorse (Dianne Wiest) who's hired to playing a cleaning lady but ends up bringing about a sort of mini-apocalypse? Those is a massive cast, and each one understands their character completely, and conveys that understanding. It's the kind of movie the SAG Ensemble Cast Award is made for; good thing they were too dumb to even nominate it. Then, there's Hoffman, who likely gives the performance of his career here; best to not describe it and just let you see it for yourself. Also topping his considerable best work is composer Jon Brion, long underrated. His score is a wonder, one that doesn't cotton to the ear at first but slowly becomes an integral part of the film's greatness. He creates a touching motif of yearning for Caden and Hazel, whips up a Phillip Glass-y piece of wonky wonderment to accompany the acting-experiment scenes, and, together with Kaufman, offers us a gorgeous, deeply affecting theme song, "Little Person". It is a crime it did not win an Oscar, as it is among the best original songs ever written for the screen. Still, this is ultimately Kaufman's film; he wrote it, and directed it. Other than Schindler's List and, to a lesser degree, the Lord of the Rings films, this is the most ambitious work of visual art created in my lifetime. But Kaufman never sacrifices intimacy along the way. He's that rare screenwriter who knows exactly what his characters should say: when Caden says "My heart aches so much for you", audiences weep because it's the perfect thing for him to say, while screenwriters sob because they know there were a thousand other WRONG things to say, and somehow, by some small miracle, Kaufman picked just the right one. As a director, he moves the piece along with a riveting economy; not one scene carries filmic flab. He also smartly avoids "money shots", keeping the visual language simple and our eyes on the characters. It's truly a challenge to believe this is a debut directorial work; however, one gets the feeling this one was brewing in Kaufman's mind for quite some time-I'd love to pull a "Being John Malkovich" and look inside THAT cranium. Back to what the movies about: living life, not examining it. The movie is often hated on because of its random outbursts of violence and disease, of grief and agony. Random, my ass. The point is not the suddeness of these things; it is that they happen, sometimes painfully. The point is not that Caden is stricken with a string of nasty diseases throughout the film; it;s that his body is decaying, and he's making the wrong choice regarding what to do with the time left to him. The point is not that people in this film mourn loss, thought they certainly do; it's that, more than anything, they're that they were too busy burying themselves in deadening intellectual practices to have any real connection with the deceased persons in the first place, and its that lack of a relationship that they mourn above all. Kaufman exhorts us to live our life to the fullest and focus on people, not ideas by brilliantly showing us the flipside; the emotionally devastating story of a man whose desire to understand cripples his ability to love, and damns him to a life of perpetual loneliness. That is the key to this film. I'll admit there's a mystery or two I still haven't solved; I don't know why Caden cries during a specific moment, and those random TV ads have me flummoxed. But, the point of this film isn't total comprehension (try that with any of Kaufman's works and get ready for a helluva migraine) ; take in the basics, understand that there are some aspects here that only the makers of the movie will understand, and do your best to open your mind to something unique, brutal, and visionary. You may hate it. You may love it. You won't know till you see it.
NEW LIST:
ORIGINAL:
"11"-The Wrestler
10-Rachel Getting Married
9-Collateral
8-Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon/Brokeback Mountain
7- There Will Be Blood
6-Atonement
5-A Priarie Home Companion
4. LOTR trilogy
3. Kill Bill trilogy
2. Moulin Rouge!
1. Synecdoche, New York
ORIGINAL:
"11"-Almost Famous
10-Rachel Getting Married
9-Collateral
8-Million Dollar Baby
7- There Will Be Blood
6-Atonement
5-A Priarie Home Companion
4. LOTR trilogy
3. Gangs of New York
2. Moulin Rouge!
1. Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon/Brokeback Mountain
NEWBIES:
11. REPLACEMENT: THE WRESTLER. Above all, movies should be human. They should treat their characters with understanding, as flawed human beings drawn toward light and darkness instead of stereotypes who side with either black or white. This simple, indelible hour-and-forty-minutes tells the tale of Randy the Ram (Mickey Rourke, in a career-capping tour de force), a burnt out wrestler who still beats other men to bloody pulp to feel alive, but whose strange, less-casual-than-it-seems relationship with an aging stripper (Marisa Tomei), has the potential to save his soul. Screenwriter Robert Siegel and director Darren Aronofsky have created a quietly devastating portrait of a man and woman who, for a fleeting moment, break free of their glass cases of self-imposed loneliness and feel the warmth of human connection shine upon them like the sun. We are moved when they find happiness oncemore, and something inside us tears as we see them lose sight of it all over again. A brutally honest piece of work that relates its story with deep understanding and rough-hewn beauty. I find myself crying during those final minutes every time.
3. REPLACEMENT: KILL BILL SAGA. The past decade saw the maturation of the cinema's token man-child. In this film (for it is truly ONE FILM), and his "Inlgourious Basterds", Tarantino digs deeper, emotionally and psychologically, than he ever did in his stylish, wham-bam 90's pictures-not that I have anything against those. For me, this, the B-movie-gone-big story of a bride (Uma Thurman), out to strike down those who gunned down her and her unborn child at her wedding, is his greatest achievement, a blood-soaked work of sound and fury that finds him in peak form and total control of even the tiniest nuance. Rumor has it this one was initially created as a project QT could use to woo Thurman. Whether or not that's what its started out as, it became so much more. The pulp-perfect dialogue is here, sprinkled with pop culture references that feel less forced and more relevant than those in Pulp Fiction and Reservoir Dogs. The typical aural hodgepodge of surfer rock, Morricone, and alt-pop has never worked better. Lenser Robert Richardson exhausts his bag of tricks, shooting overexposed, in moody black and white, in Sergio sepia; the film is a joy to look at. Performances are all knockouts; Tarantino always brings out the best in his actors, and Thurman, Daryl Hannah, Michael Madsen, Lucy Liu, and Vivica Fox all astound, though these films really belong to David Carradine as the title character and instigator of the aforementioned massacre; his world-weary wit and quiet fury give these stories unexpected spiritual and emotional heft, all the more reason to miss this entertainment legend. The action scenes play like gangbusters, and pulsate with the hot blood of ingenuity; Tarantino's done quickie shoot-outs and torture scenes, but here, as Thurman's pissed-off Bride takes out scores of Yakuza hard-cases with nothing but a Hanzo sword and balls of steel, we at least get the glourious experience of seeing the man go full-on kung-fu. But what sets this saga apart from the everyday boom-boom-pow pack is it's intelligence; there's a keen insightfulness at work that sneaks up on you. Tarantino's advancing his characters stories while simultaneously examining their souls, providing us glimpses into the troubled psyches of cold-blooded mercenaries whose biggest regret is that they can't outrun their conscience, and oh, what a fascinating experience it is to what it catch up with them. "That girl deserves her revenge", says Madsen's Budd, "and we all deserve to die". Damn straight. Find me another action movie that breaks your heart and busts your gut, or just sit back, shut up and take this one in.
1. REPLACEMENT (YOU READ THAT RIGHT): Synecdoche, New York
You haven't heard of it. Maybe you read some of the scathing reviews heaped upon it by skeptics. Or you've seen the DVD cover, with it's cryptic panorama of a blimp slicing through the skyline of an eerily empty metropolis. But you probably haven't had the opportunity to get lost in Charlie Kaufman's fantastic fever dream of a film, a poignant modern-day tragedy that draws its oomph from its sheer emotional power. "Synecdoche" is the tale of a man who, in the process of attempting to understand his life, forgets to live it; who, in his desperate quest to assign meaning to his existence, robs himself of that which means most to him. This man is Caden Cotard (Phillip Seymour Hoffman). Pushing forty, his body decaying, his mind immersed in his work, his personal life a wreckage, he comes up with a gonzo-crazy-brilliant idea; he will create a life-size replica of his native New York, and populate with it with actors portraying real-life people he knows, so that he may understand them, and thus fix his fractured world. But understanding still eludes him; not only can he not make sense of the people in his life, he finds that he can't break through to the actors he's hired. So he hires actors to play his actors. When this fails, he hires actors to play the actors who are playing his real-life acquaintances, then actors to play THOSE actors, and so on and so forth until his dreamworld turns into a vast, overcrowded nightmare, a hotbed of unfulfilled longing and confusion where fact and fiction spill over into each other with disturbing results. If it weren't such a transporting drama, it would've made a damn good horror film, huh? Just a thought. Since it's a film about the art of performance, nothing less than a once-in-a-lifetime cast would've done. Good thing Kaufman's got one. This is the kind of film where, just as you've pegged your favorite character, a new one comes along to pull the rug out. You're drawn into the struggle of Caden's wife, Adele (Catherine The Goddess Keener), fighting to reconcile her artistic fantasies with her matriarchal realities; but then you meet Samantha Morton's endearingly nutty Hazel, Caden's Girl That Got Away and long for her presence, not just because she's a beacon of light in a pitch-black story but because we ache for these two to be together; but wait, when Caden gets married again, we get hooked into the stormy, strange currents sent out by his second wife, Claire (Michelle Williams, the best brooder the movies have given us in a while); but ho, there! What about that actor Caden hires to play himself (a wonderfully creepy discovery named Tom Noonan)? Or the brittle old stage warhorse (Dianne Wiest) who's hired to playing a cleaning lady but ends up bringing about a sort of mini-apocalypse? Those is a massive cast, and each one understands their character completely, and conveys that understanding. It's the kind of movie the SAG Ensemble Cast Award is made for; good thing they were too dumb to even nominate it. Then, there's Hoffman, who likely gives the performance of his career here; best to not describe it and just let you see it for yourself. Also topping his considerable best work is composer Jon Brion, long underrated. His score is a wonder, one that doesn't cotton to the ear at first but slowly becomes an integral part of the film's greatness. He creates a touching motif of yearning for Caden and Hazel, whips up a Phillip Glass-y piece of wonky wonderment to accompany the acting-experiment scenes, and, together with Kaufman, offers us a gorgeous, deeply affecting theme song, "Little Person". It is a crime it did not win an Oscar, as it is among the best original songs ever written for the screen. Still, this is ultimately Kaufman's film; he wrote it, and directed it. Other than Schindler's List and, to a lesser degree, the Lord of the Rings films, this is the most ambitious work of visual art created in my lifetime. But Kaufman never sacrifices intimacy along the way. He's that rare screenwriter who knows exactly what his characters should say: when Caden says "My heart aches so much for you", audiences weep because it's the perfect thing for him to say, while screenwriters sob because they know there were a thousand other WRONG things to say, and somehow, by some small miracle, Kaufman picked just the right one. As a director, he moves the piece along with a riveting economy; not one scene carries filmic flab. He also smartly avoids "money shots", keeping the visual language simple and our eyes on the characters. It's truly a challenge to believe this is a debut directorial work; however, one gets the feeling this one was brewing in Kaufman's mind for quite some time-I'd love to pull a "Being John Malkovich" and look inside THAT cranium. Back to what the movies about: living life, not examining it. The movie is often hated on because of its random outbursts of violence and disease, of grief and agony. Random, my ass. The point is not the suddeness of these things; it is that they happen, sometimes painfully. The point is not that Caden is stricken with a string of nasty diseases throughout the film; it;s that his body is decaying, and he's making the wrong choice regarding what to do with the time left to him. The point is not that people in this film mourn loss, thought they certainly do; it's that, more than anything, they're that they were too busy burying themselves in deadening intellectual practices to have any real connection with the deceased persons in the first place, and its that lack of a relationship that they mourn above all. Kaufman exhorts us to live our life to the fullest and focus on people, not ideas by brilliantly showing us the flipside; the emotionally devastating story of a man whose desire to understand cripples his ability to love, and damns him to a life of perpetual loneliness. That is the key to this film. I'll admit there's a mystery or two I still haven't solved; I don't know why Caden cries during a specific moment, and those random TV ads have me flummoxed. But, the point of this film isn't total comprehension (try that with any of Kaufman's works and get ready for a helluva migraine) ; take in the basics, understand that there are some aspects here that only the makers of the movie will understand, and do your best to open your mind to something unique, brutal, and visionary. You may hate it. You may love it. You won't know till you see it.
NEW LIST:
ORIGINAL:
"11"-The Wrestler
10-Rachel Getting Married
9-Collateral
8-Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon/Brokeback Mountain
7- There Will Be Blood
6-Atonement
5-A Priarie Home Companion
4. LOTR trilogy
3. Kill Bill trilogy
2. Moulin Rouge!
1. Synecdoche, New York
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)