You know, it’s easier for me to tip you if the case opened the other way.
Rating: 7 out of 10
At the end of every year there is a wonderful, insane, intentionally over-hyped flood of films known as “Oscar Season”. This is when all the major studios release their heavy dramatic fare, which they hope will garner numerous nominations and armloads of awards. Those accolades not only boost the notoriety of the studios, but usually the critically acclaimed films get a much needed bump in the box office. So it is no wonder that the movie calendar gets incredibly crowded and sometimes a film gets yanked from the slate in order to not find itself dueling with other preening examples of award-bearing cinema. Last year this was the fate of the much anticipated film, The Soloist. Four months later, it sweeps into theaters as the only critical drama in town, looking to round up the reviews in a much quieter time, but it still has to answer the eternal question: Is it any good?
The Soloist is based on a true story (and a subsequent book) about a newspaper reporter named Steve Lopez, who stumbles across a homeless man, Nathaniel Ayers Jr., whose grace and prodigal gift for music inspires Steve to write a series of articles about him and help Nathaniel get back on his feet. Complicating this seemingly simple matter is the painful and paralyzing effects of schizophrenia, which Nathaniel suffers from. Steve finds himself dueling with how far he will engage himself with a subject for the sake of a story and where the line is drawn between objective journalist and compassionate friend.
This contemporary tale of friendship beyond the social mores is the most recent film from Joe Wright, fresh off his nomination for Best Picture in 2008 for Atonement. Known to the American audience more for his Victorian stylings, Wright brings his talent and skill for subtle and intriguing characterizations to modern day Los Angeles. He had well-honed weapons at his disposal with the dynamic duo of Robert Downey Jr. (as the sarcastic and sardonic Lopez) and Jamie Foxx (as the gifted and troubled Ayers). While both gave strong efforts, Downey stole every scene he was in and the movie tended to lag when it drifted away from his character for too long. I’ve seen Foxx do some incredible work before (i.e. Ray), but here he struggles in connecting with the audience, which I think had more to do with the writing and how his character was set up throughout the film. Also, the pair of protagonists didn’t have a physical and real life villain to compete against; instead their battle is against the internal nature of Foxx’s disease and the external nature of society and its treatment of homelessness. Downey comes off as earnest and true, but under all the heavy concepts and conflicts of the film Foxx feels buried and slightly monotone. Not that Downey needed the extra boost on his side, but he shares his storyline with the amazing and lovely Catherine Keener, who plays the ex-wife who can’t help remaining in love with Downey (not to mention seeing him every day since she is his boss at the newspaper). She tenderly supports Downey as he struggles through his journey from social disbeliever back into the world of a connected and responsible citizen.
Beyond the acting, another stumbling point was the various attempts to visualize the effect of music on Foxx’s character. It is truly important to know and understand how music flows through his soul and seemingly calms the numerous voices in his mind, but instead of letting Foxx give us that on screen, we instead receive one scene of two birds soaring through the Los Angeles skyline and another of a painfully long iTunes-esque light show while he listened to Beethoven inside the Walt Disney concert hall. Both choices played incredibly heavy-handed and failed to generate the subconscious connection needed to bring the audience along.
Recommendation: Downey continues his run and shows no sign of falling off his pace, which makes the film imminently worth watching. If they had picked one major story to work with, the schizophrenia or the plight of the homeless, the film would have been much leaner and stronger, but even so, it still shows some strong work from the amazingly competent cast and crew.
The eternal question of any adaptation is, “Should it be done?” Fanboys and critics all over the world continually debate over whether a movie version of a book or graphic novel is a necessary step in the creative process. Will it bring anything new to the story? Is it even allowed to? Will it bring more fans to the work of the original author or will it backfire and cause old school fans to flip their collective lid? When treading into the world of comic book and graphic novel adaptations it is an especially thin line and most studios find themselves in a very pretty, but gilded cage. How much of the original material do they have to keep and how big of a blow-back from the fanboys can they withstand? Add to those normal worries the fact that in this case they are dealing with a piece of original content hailed as “the most celebrated graphic novel of all time“. Yeah, no pressure here. Lucky for Warner Brothers they happen to stumble upon a relatively new up-and-comer, Zack Snyder, who combined with his hyper-stylish visuals, also happened to be a long-time devotee of the original work. Dying to finally film the movie some said could never be done, the deal with the devil was made and the twenty-five year wait came to a close.
I’ve been racking my brain on how to really approach reviewing this film because clocking in at just under three hours, there is a wealth of things to hit, both good and bad. I decided to create a laundry list of items which merit mention and let you just check them off as you scroll on by:
- Zack Snyder: Leaving extremely bloody footprints through the box office with his CGI wonder-slaughter, 300, Snyder truly is the R-rated world’s golden boy. Yet truth be told, he was hired for Watchmen before 300 ever hit the theaters and he won the job purely on his pitch and unshakable loyalty to the property. Unfortunately, this also became his greatest downfall in the creative process. The movie comes off as a picture-in-picture moving version of the graphic novel, almost as if he brought in the book, dropped in front of the Director of Photography and the screenwriters and said, “Here are your storyboards. Do that.” Sure, this makes for an extremely faithful rendition, but it also makes it inherently uninteresting. He let his love for the book and his fear of fanboy retribution sway him from making the necessary changes in the story and visuals to create a more cohesive and enjoyable film. There is a distinct difference between the consumer experience when reading a graphic novel and seeing a movie and Snyder could have done that much better if he remembered which one he was working for.
- Jackie Earle Haley: Welcome to the performance of the year (at least thus far). Haley takes on the role of Rorshach, a sociopath with wildly violent tendencies, but he only uses them against bad people, so it’s totally fine. Working against any actor brave enough to play this part is the nearly constant presence of the identifying inkblot mask of Rorshach, constantly changing, keeping the onlooker off-balance and uncomfortable. Hugo Weaving found himself with similar barriers in his run as V in V for Vendetta and he also found some way to emote and intrigue from behind the lifeless mask. In Watchmen, Haley is terrifying, intimidating and pointedly driven throughout the film and somehow manages to become even more so during the small time when his mask is actually removed. A particular unmasked scene in the jailhouse is hands down the best and most rewarding scene in the film. I’ll boldly compare his effect on lifting this movie into respectability and enjoyment to the effect of Heath Ledger in The Dark Knight. Haley won’t be as revered or remembered by the majority of the cinematic community for this in comparison to Ledger, but without him, Watchmen would have crumbled under the sheer weight of its own scope and depth.
- Dr. Manhattan’s Wang: A picture perfect case of choosing intellectual reasoning over creatively intelligent choices. Snyder made the decision to follow along with the book and have Dr. Manhattan naked for most of the film, so in every scene where he faces the camera and is being shot below the waist, there’s his glowing blue appendage dangling for everyone to see, but for some reason Snyder neglected the fact that in the book Dr. Manhattan is cleverly blocked in virtually every frame when facing out. Now I’m no prude or in any realm of questioning my sexuality, but it’s impossible to not be knocked out of the moment every time it appears. The main reason for that is American audiences are nowhere near as used to seeing that on film as other countries, mostly in Europe. Snyder chose to once again satisfy the small fraction of the fanboy audience instead of recognizing the majority of people who will just find it silly and patently distracting. Almost every review I have seen and commentary from people the moment they walk out of the theater has started the same way, “Well, there’s a lot of blue penis.” Sorry, but if that’s the first thing people are saying coming out of this supposedly legendary story, you have failed in a major way. This also hurts what otherwise would have been a great performance by Billy Crudup, who did nearly the entire film in a motion capture suit. He really delivered on the emotionless void that Dr. Manhattan suffers through due to his ability to control anything he wants, down to its very atoms. One small shred of rational thought in costuming this character would have changed everything and improved the overall experience immensely.
- Tone vs. Style: The graphic novel was acclaimed from the moment it rolled off the press for many reasons, one of which was that it took on a superhero-style storyline without the superhero-style slickness. It is a raw, dark and dank story with colors and tones to match, with the grimy feel of streets filled with the worst and loneliest of human kind. Snyder made a very brave effort to replicate this, but in the world of mega-million dollar studio pictures, getting something with a dirty face out to the public is equal a single contestant running every American Gladiator event back-to-back. What we see in the theater is a type of combination of grit and gloss, seedy and slick, poetic and polished. Snyder walked a very tight tripwire between the two: one to satisfy the fans and the other to satisfy the studio, which in the end leaves the movie a bit imbalanced. It jumps from muted earth tones to reflective latex outfits in the blink of an eye with no hint of a visual segue. Both tones are enjoyable for different reasons, but I think the movie could have been served that much better by a more subtle blending of the two.
- The Ensemble Cast: Snyder made a good choice by not trying to lure in huge A-list actors here. Their presence would have only distracted from the content of the story and overwhelmed the already tenuous balance of personality over presence. I’ve already raved about the spectacular effort of Jackie Earle Haley as Rorshach and touched on Billy Crudup’s valiant stroke at overcoming the distraction of his own genitalia, but the rest of the cast was a bit of a mixed bag. Jeffery Dean Morgan tackled the sadistic and grizzled character of The Comedian, who in a certain respect is part of the tag-team catalyst of the story, along with Rorshach. Morgan really plays the part well, just egging the audience into a seething hatred of his presence, but he suffers just a touch from under-explanation. Even with the weight of all the flashbacks in the beginning, Morgan feels slightly one-dimensional, though that single dimension is played with vigor and flair. Malin Akerman slips into the skin tight suit of Silk Spectre II (the original Spectre, her mom, being played in a handful of scenes by Carla Gugino). Once again the part was portrayed well, but suffers even worse under-development. Where Malin actually succeeds is not while donning the latex fantasy of teenage boys the world over, but during her scenes as the normal, non-ass kicking Laurie Jupiter. Her tenderness and need for that same emotion in return is what pulls her through this epic tale. Patrick Wilson also has a better time playing his daytime persona of Dan Dreiberg versus his ridiculously clad Nite Owl II persona. Wilson captures the weakness and self-loathing of a man who feels he should be above the desire to run around as a costumed vigilante and fight for justice, but once he gives into that addiction his Nite Owl persona feels less than authentic. In the realm of the costumed vigilantes the only total miscue is the casting of Matthew Goode as Ozymandias. What should have come off as suave assuredness and blatant cockiness instead rang more like intellectual smugness wrapped in a fairly effeminate blanket. Basically, the actor playing Ozymandias should have been bigger and more manly. Throughout the film he never delivered the emotional threat or physical intimidation he needed to and by the time the credits roll the character just feels void instead of reluctantly classified as a hero.
One last note, I can’t even begin to fathom how someone wraps their head around having $150 million dollars to plays with while making a film, but Snyder needed to go back, grab some of the budget from flame effects and three-dimensional titles and toss it back at the hair and makeup department. Ranging from Akerman’s wig to the shoddy aging effects on Carla Gugino, the overall makeup efforts on the film were laughable. The one thought running through my head while watching some of those terrible examples was, “Did they get the same makeup people from The Reader?” (You should be imbuing here that I thought Kate Winslet’s aging effects were equally terrible. Oh, I checked, they were totally different makeup crews. There goes that theory.)
Recommendation: Even with all my nit-picky bitching over certain elements, Snyder proved all the naysayers wrong. They all railed for years that Watchmen could never be made as a movie and Snyder did just that. I’m just not sure it was the best one that could have been made. Even so, I enjoyed it and plan on seeing it once more to help clarify my feelings for it (this time in IMAX) and in that vein I can easily say this is one film everyone should go see and make up their own minds. There is a lot to chew on, so don’t fill up at the concession stand.
Posted 3 years, 2 months ago at 10:21 am. Add a comment
“Wait one more sec, he was in Fantastic Four? I can’t be seen with him.”
Rating: 4 out of 10
Just over three years ago hordes of people sat in their living rooms and bore witness to the birth of a phenomenon (however short it may have lasted). Heroes debuted and quickly gained a worldwide following as people everywhere attached themselves to the notion of ordinary people suddenly becoming extraordinary. While being glued to the comic-book styled serial every week, we all silently asked ourselves what power we would want, what would we do with those powers and would we turn into a ‘hero’ or a ‘villain’. No matter what the end result of those internal polls was, we were hooked to the live-action X-Men update and the rest of Hollywood was quick to make a note of that. Cut to three years later, Heroes is fighting to regain its mass appeal and while the shine has worn off of our shiny new TV toy, Hollywood unleashed their response to the comic book craze, Push.
Push takes place in a world where descendants of human experiments conducted under the Nazi regime have evolved into modern-day test subjects for the U.S. Government. Powers are unveiled, but not controlled, so a group known as Division is created to hunt down and collect ‘special’ people. In all the various types of powerful people, one group is called the Watchers, who see the future, and a young, inexperienced Watcher has a vision which she must change, because if she doesn’t, she and others will die. A ragtag group of mutant outcasts on the run is brought together to fight Division and take possession of the one object they need to bring the whole conspiracy down to its knees and finally find their freedom.
On paper you have everything you need for a youthful, superhero-laden smackdown between the forces of good and evil, but what Push delivers is a badly paced, clunky, big-brother-esque mess only working its way up to four points on my ratings scale due to a fantastic fight scene at the end. In truth, those points might be cancelled out since while gaining points for the badass action sequence, it lost equal points for proving it could make great action scene and just chose not to. I fully support the right to try and create something new in an over-worked genre, but there are particular criteria which remain steadfast and necessary, like a training montage (such a popular tool, the South Park fellas made a song about it). We were supposed to buy the transformation of a main character from barely being able to mentally tip over a pair of dice to yanking down entire building structures without any increased practice with his powers. Beyond the holes in the structure, the visuals also leave something to be desired since numerous times throughout the film it cuts to grainy, 16mm-looking stock in an effort to make it look cool and edgy, but while dazzling you with the flashy technique they hope you won’t notice the scene is either totally unnecessary or unmotivated. I celebrate stylistic choices, but using them purely to make up for a bad script is sacrilege. Another sacrilegious thing is using a cinematic style that is a poor representation of Danny Boyle. Slumdog Millionaire is not a fluke, he’s just that good.
Flexing their dramatic abilities in this colorful mess is a group of young actors with a couple seasoned vets tossed in for critical weight. First in the brat pack is Chris Evans, who is no stranger to the land of comic book inspired cinema. He lit it up as The Human Torch in the pair of Fantastic Four movies and I will give him a certain amount of credit for being one of the only things done right in those tragedies. Evans gets a touch lost in the current landscape of young male leads, but he has done a decent job in the roles he sneaks in. He actually gave a surprisingly good show in the dark sci-fi thriller, Sunshine (directed by none other than Danny Boyle, coincidence?). Evans plays Nick, our reticent hero with the ability to move things with his mind, but unfortunately for the audience he is unable to move them for most of the running time of the movie. Next in line, stepping out of her creepy adult-like doll phase, is Dakota Fanning, who plays Cassie, the inexperienced and willfull Watcher who sees bad things ahead for her band of misfits (does she possibly see the sequel?). Fanning is doing her best to remind people she is a teenage girl and growing like a chemically-laden flower. There are a few moments where I think they took her need to look more adult a touch too far, considering she was thirteen when she shot it in Tokyo, but then again, Fanning played a rape victim at twelve, so nothing is really going to push her too far at this point. She still proves her level of talent and in a few scenes manages to vault herself above her castmates, but in the end the project felt more like a choice to open her up to a broader audience instead of being base don the merit of the story. Camilla Belle rounds out the youthful runts of Push, playing Kira, the mind-controlling supersoldier escaped from government hands. Of course, she also has a few hidden plot twists up her sleeve, but those never seem to play out right or feel supported in any fashion. They mostly appear in moments where the writer was thinking, “I bet they think it is going to go this way. It should go that way. Logically hat way makes sense. So I’ll do something totally different and they’ll love it because it’s unexpected.” Such a simple and flawed argument. Bringing in a touch of critical weight, beyond Fanning, is Djimon Hounsou, who first burst onto the scene as the earnest and determined slave looking for human rights in Amistad, which won him a Golden Globe nomination as well. Hounsou plays Carter, a powerful mind-controller on the government’s side who is on the hunt for Kira and has no qualms about who or what gets in his way, even his own people. While there is no doubt Hounsou has the ability to be amazingly intimidating, his stone-like stares and deep intensity have no context in the movie and never really get the chance to grow. His smoothness is indisputable, but the audience never truly gets to see how he backs up all that confidence. Not to be left out, Ming Na and Cliff Curtis have side roles as a “sniffer” who can figure out google-levels of information from the scent of anything and a “shifter”, which is basically a fancy term for an illusionist, respectively. Both do a decent job, but I know their work is much more layered when given better environments to perform in.
My last issue with Push is it repeats one of the worst things about Jumper, which easily qualifies as one of the worst sci-fi flicks of last year. Both films fail to adequately resolve the main story and arrogantly tease a sequel they fully expect us to beg for. Although Push gets to walk a couple spaces ahead of Jumper in the line of quality, neither is deserving of a second go-around.
Recommendation: My review isn’t all doom and gloom. There is a kick-ass fight scene at the end, which hopefully will be properly emulated if the filmmakers use some sort of mutant power of their own and manage to create a sequel. Wait until this hits cable TV, unless you have never learned to properly cook a decent hot dog, then go to the Arclight for a matinee. :: :: :: :: :: :: :: :: :: :: ::
Posted 3 years, 3 months ago at 10:56 am. Add a comment
This girl, she was on ‘Lost’. You’re going to tell me what the hell her character was really doing there. TELL ME!!!
Rating: 9 out of 10
Sometimes it’s good to take a breather after watching a film, really take some time to process what you thought about it. Strolling out of the darkness on Friday night, I was on an adrenaline high from the film I just witnessed. I was already writing the headline in my mind, “First Perfect Score!”, “10 out of 10!”, or “I Got Taken!”, but now that I’ve had a couple days to catch my breath and really mull over the difference between the movie itself and the movie experience, I regretfully say you are going to have to wait a little while longer to hear me rant and rave about my first perfect film. But take heart, Neeson and crew came achingly close and I’m thrilled to give it the credit it deserves.
Taken is a terrifyingly simple story: Overprotective Dad find out his young and virginal daughter has been kidnapped. Of course, most fathers are going to do everything they can to get their daughter back, but in this case, “everything he can” encompasses a lot more than the usual retiree father. Calling on skills from his previous job as a “preventer” for the government, the father races off to Paris to follow his daughter’s trail and pick apart anyone and everyone who either stands in his way or had anything to do with the crime. It’s a prime example of a man on a mission and nothing in the world is going to stop him.
Simple story, right? So what could possibly make it so good or so much better than all the other ‘action/spy/thriller’ films we’ve seen in recent years? First off, Liam Neeson, who plays the incredibly dangerous dad, Bryan Mills, already brings a level of talent and pathos to the character we would have lost with a less skilled actor. Neeson is no stranger to playing undeterred heroes, in such films as Michael Collins, Rob Roy and even Schindler’s List. These were all men who were willing to step way over the line in the fight for what they believed in. Now you mix that determination with the moral ambivalence of another of Neeson’s previous creations, Darkman, and you get our paternal savior from Taken. Neeson is an unstoppable juggernaut, once set in motion he is unswerving in his determination to achieve his goal. The hero’s code has no place in the world of this character and brings a fresh feel to what normally would have been a very standard role. Picture Jason Bourne without a conscience and you’ll be right on the money. The care and ethical treatment of others is void from his actions, even those who would be considered his friends. Another reason why I liked this character so much is it reminded me of an adult version of Brick, another film with a lead character who steamrolls over everyone in his path. (If I had been reviewing film back then, Brick would have undoubtedly received a perfect score. If you haven’t seen it yet, make it a priority.) Outside of Neeson’s stoic violence, the only other actor worth mentioning is Maggie Grace, who plays Kim, the kidnapped daughter. She amazingly looks the part, even though her real age is far above the seventeen she plays in the film, but there were a few moments where she regressed a little too far, playing closer to fifteen or even thirteen. I can’t be sure whether it was a bad choice on the director, actor or if they were trying for a subliminal critique of how sheltered the character was from the real world, but either way, it just came off odd.
Continuing it’s reasons for success, Taken is also written extremely well, with a solid sense of pace and a keen eye towards the importance of development when needed. Most spy movies jump right into the espionage and a gunfight will erupt within minutes of the opening credits, but the inciting incident, the kidnapping, doesn’t actually come for at least twenty minutes. This gives the audience plenty of time to get to know daddy Mills and his daughter Kim, what their relationship is like and by the time she disappears, Mills has already had one chance to show off his skills, so the audience has a logical basis for all the damage he is about to incur on the villains. That brings up another particularly interesting twist in screenwriting; there is no antagonist character here. No villain which we can all attach our hate and anger to, the antagonist of the film is the crime itself and the society that promotes it. Each time a face or a name is revealed to be the person Mills is after, he finds them and dispatches them before anyone gets a chance to really attach anything to them. Normally this would be a failure in the writing, but screenwriters Luc Besson and Robert Mark Kamen achieve a lofty switch by making this movie all about the crime itself, instead of a single person. This writing duo is not unfamiliar with the action/thriller landscape, having penned the Transporter series, along with The Fifth Element, Kiss of the Dragon and Leon (the last one was Besson alone), so it doesn’t come as a big surprise that Taken has such a rich underbelly of character and subtext usually unfound in this genre.
Recommendation: A pulse pounding thriller with a slow burn to begin, this is a rare find in the cinematic world. There are moments in this film you will definitely not see coming and those alone make it worth a viewing, whether in the theater or at home. Neeson truly succeeds in making your first meeting with your girlfriend’s dad scary once more. :: :: :: :: :: :: :: :: :: :: ::
Posted 3 years, 3 months ago at 8:12 am. Add a comment
Usually I just draw a happy face on the window, but to each his own…
Rating: 7 out of 10
There is a time for deep, thought provoking films, and there is a time for light-hearted, slapstick comedies, but once in a while all you really want is some eye-popping, logic-avoiding, probability-jumping horror. When that need rushes up and bites you on the neck, your best bet is usually to run to the local video store and grab the first box with these three things on the cover: a weapon, a silhouette and the name of a holiday/special occasion. But sometimes you might just be lucky enough to look up into the glowing marquee at the nearest megaplex and see the wonderment just waiting for you…
…and this time, it’s in 3D!!!
My Bloody Valentine is a gore-filled romp through a small town trapped in the past. A terrible accident in the local coal mine traps a handful of people in the deep, dark tunnels. When rescuers finally get inside, they find one of the miners has killed the rest in an effort to conserve his own air. The lone miner comes out in a coma, but when he awakens eight months later he continues his killing spree in the most glorified fashion before many believe he was finally killed in the very same mine. Ten years later, a young man returns to his hometown to sell his family-owned coal mine and in the process the killings begin once again. Suspicions burn in the minds of the locals as they try to figure out if the original killer is back or if an incredibly devoted copycat has taken on his predecessor’s passion.
Taking a brave step into the revamped 3D technology, My Bloody Valentine brings all the expected bells and whistles to the table. Numerous shots of the infamous pick axe jutting out towards the audience, blood splatters, fiery explosions, and last, but certainly not least, limbs and other appendages torn off and flopped on the eagerly awaiting crowd. The ads shown for this are a touch misleading with the true effect of the 3D technology, where they want you to think it will be reaching out to grab your soul from behind the silver screen, the newer 3D effect is more about creating depth behind the screen instead of in front of it. Nevertheless, the special effects are as impressive as they are cheesy and provide the perfect boost to make this an enjoyable theater experience. The movie still would maintain a certain sense of horror kitsch without being in 3D, but there would be a lot less giggling by the viewers.
As for the movie itself, there is a beauty that encompasses a film that fully and completely recognizes what it is and doesn’t try to be more. This is popcorn gore at it most picturesque, filled with cheesy dialogue, totally anticipated shock moments and a seemingly unstoppable villain behind a mask (who doesn’t love that one?). To its great credit, Valentine begins with a rather hokey flashback sequence sending out heaps and heaps of exposition onto the audience in order to get us into the bloodfest as soon as possible. Within ten minutes there is a scene in the local hospital which lays out carnage rivaling any zombie movie in recent years. It truly felt like the guys in the prop department laid out every fake body they had, then when they ran out they just started randomly placing torsos, limbs and various free-floating appendages wherever there was empty space. Although that might sound like it crossed the line of necessity, it was a perfect way to set the audience up for the sheer ridiculousness of the movie. People struggling to hold onto some sense of logic from that point forward should please leave quietly.
Normally the acting in these movies is pleasantly atrocious, but the CW network-inspired cast held together fairly well here. Jensen Ackles plays the young man who returns to town ten years after the last major killing spree and becomes the lightning rod for the new one. His time starring on the show Supernatural (Supernatural – The Complete First Season) set him up well for the tone of the movie. He naturally settles into that protective “stay behind me even though I have no idea how to fight whatever this is” look. Taking on the role of the hometown sweetheart-turned-local trophy wife is Jamie King. She screams well, yearns well and shoots a handgun slightly off target, what more could you ask for? Kerr Smith, of Dawson’s Creek (Dawson’s Creek – The Complete Series (Seasons 1-6 Plus Series Finale)) fame, plays the bad boy-turned-slightly-less bad boy who steals the high school sweetheart after Jensen bails from town. Kerr has always displayed a talent for playing characters with massive amounts of pent-up anger issues and Valentine offers plenty of that for him to revel in. All in all this post-teen cast holds its own fairly well, hitting all the right consciously bad notes where they need to be. No one watches these for Oscar-winning performances. What we want is attractive people to scream, kill or be killed and go down gloriously, which they all achieve fabulously.
The story follows a tight schlock horror pattern and gives us all the traditional beats along the way, but inside that pattern is the one fault of the film, the twist. The third act reveal is a touch underwhelming and not portrayed all that well on screen. Some nice visual effects are tossed over in an effort to distract the audience from trying to make sense of the twist, but in the end it was a touch disappointing for a movie which otherwise held up an actual sense of possibility throughout. They also decided to leave a window open for a sequel (and that’s not a spoiler if I don’t tell you why, so stop yer’ yelling. ) and as much as sequels are a cemented part of the horror movie tradition, it’s not one I think is paramount to making a good film. Sometimes the movie studios just need to make an effort to create a good film and let it have whatever life it will without stretching it out into a never-ending deluge of straight-to-DVD tripe. Instead of getting an “it’s not over yet” un-shocking moment in the closing minutes of the movie, I would much rather had a bigger, better and more gruesome climax with the remaining characters. It can be better to go out with a bang than to not go out at all.
Lastly, one tradition which this film relishes in is the deluge of nudity expected in anything under the horror genre and rated “R”. Valentine not only steps up the plate here, but swings a grand slam by successfully filling the quota and mocking it at the same time with a seven-minute long scream queen scene where our damsel in distress is completely nude for the her entire performance. My hats off to actress Betsy Rue for unabashedly delivering this tradition its best example in years.
Recommendation: If you are a schlock-horror fan, this is fantastically perfect in many ways. It is a must-see in the theater for that crowd because of the 3D experience. Without the jawbones flying at you it loses just a little of that…I don’t know…special something.
I was told by a reliable source that black is the new black this year.
Rating: 7 out of 10
There are numerous ways to tell a story. You can paint a picture which conveys one image, but a library worth of emotion. You can write a piece of music which seeps in behind the eyes and speaks even more directly to the heart. Hell, some people can even tell a story through the presentation of a seven course meal with a well thought out menu. Yet two of the most popular ways to tell a story are on stage and on screen and every now and again one story takes that perilous walk from one to the other. Sometimes the results can be fascinating, like opening up a whole new way to think about the characters and the story as a whole, but on other occasions all you do is sit back and wish you’d seen it in its original form. Sometimes, just sometimes, where you’re born is where you’re meant to stay.
As you might guess, that is how I feel about Doubt.
Doubt is a story about a power struggle between Sister Aloysius Beauvier, an overbearing, discipline-driven nun and Father Brendan Flynn, a younger, more socially-forward pastor that the Sister unwillingly works for. Sister Aloysius is alerted to a possible inappropriate situation going on between Father Flynn and a young boy in the church and she goes on a hell-bent tirade to root him out, no matter what the cost or the complete lack of proof she has. With conviction and passion on her side and logic and the absence of proof on his side, these two deeply entrenched personalities battle over truth, what you are allowed to do to get it and finally, if you really need it at all.
The story originated as a play written by John Patrick Shanley and he went on to write the screenplay and direct the film himself. In most cases you don’t get that lucky, to have the original creator still in such control over the new permutation, but Shanley made sure he kept the tone and power of the story intact during its newest transformation. In a certain respect that might be part of the problem. In the original play only four characters were in it: the nun, the father, the younger nun and the mother of the boy in question. With the film, many more people had to be created to fill out the world they lived in and on occasion it worked perfectly, creating fluid movement between the scenes with the major characters, but every now and again you could feel the presence of a band-aid type of moment, only there to hold things together while we got to something actually important. Also, I haven’t read the play or ever seen it on stage, but the character of the boy’s mother only has one scene in the film, albeit an incredibly powerful one, and it feels like she could have been made much more integral to the film. The dialogue is intense, pointed and incredibly crisp, but that much is to be expected coming from such an accomplished playwright as Shanely. As a play, Doubt had already taken home the 2005 Drama Desk Award, a Tony Award and the Pulitzer Prize. Not too shabby.
In some of the transfers from stage to screen, the studios and directors will reach out to those actors already familiar with the material and bring in the original cast members (as was done with Frost/Nixon with Langella and Sheen), but Shanely made a specific choice to not invite his stage cast into the film project because he knew with the growth of the world he had to create for the film, those actors would have a harder time adapting to the new version of the story and they would feel out of place with the rest of the cast. So he brought in new blood to the project and I can truly say he chose incredibly well. Philip Seymour Hoffman took on the role of Father Flynn and he attacked it with the passion and sensitivity we have all come to know and expect from him. There is an honesty about him, even when he is playing a villain, that makes the audience side with him on nearly anything. Standing across the religious ring from him was Meryl Streep as Sister Aloysius. She channeled every child’s worst nightmare of their Catholic school upbringing into this devout and devious despot. From the moment she lets her brain lock onto the possibility of Father Flynn’s misdeed, she tenaciously grabs hold, sets her head down and barrels over anyone and everything in her path. Like most movies born on the stage, this has some truly amazing scenes and one particular fight between Hoffman and Streep is stunning in the level of intensity, power and outrage they both escalate to. Shyly trying to not impede on the performances of her cast mates is Amy Adams as the young and innocent Sister James. She has the unwanted joy of lighting the match which burns through this entire piece and the second she lights it her face and heart drops knowing it will lead to something awful. Adams is still climbing the ladder of her already illustrious career and few are doing it with such variety and skill as her. It’s understandable that she would feel somewhat intimidated by tangling with Hoffman and Streep, but her talent holds up quite well in such company. Rounding out the original four characters is Viola Davis as Mrs. Miller. Davis only gets one scene in the entire film, so maybe it was the knowledge of that which made her decide to knock it completely out of the park. She shared time in that scene only with Streep, but instead of letting the audience revel in Streep’s already well-known talent, Davis injects herself with bravado, self-righteousness and gives Streep her only ass-whooping of the film. With only words, Streep looks like she has been bowled over by a cement truck by the end of a scene where the two characters simply walk down a small path. Davis went along to be nominated for a Golden Globe for Best Supporting Actress in a Drama and it was well deserved.
In the end my reason for thinking it most likely works better on stage is due to the rest of the world feeling somewhat forced. The original four are still the only truly interesting characters and when we are away from them, we just end up wondering where they are. Also the tone and pacing is still very much that of a play and the film runs incredibly fast, so the ending feels a touch abrupt in my book. Shanely also mentioned in an interview that he wanted to make sure the audience left with a sense of doubt about whether the alleged event of Father Flynn ever really took place. Unfortunately for me, Hoffman’s performance never gave me too much feeling on his guilt and Streep’s inability to see any logic outside of her own made her seem too oblivious and misguided to be on the right side of the argument. There were some quick shots later referred to in an effort to shed a cracked light on Father Flynn, but it was too little too late for me.
Recommendation: This particular film with lose nothing in the shift from big screen to TV, so feel free to wait on that account. If you are a connoisseur of acting, this is a great example of some true pros at work, but if you’re looking for a more well-rounded plot, this might not fit the bill.
Did I have your phone tapped? Your voice sounds so familiar…
Rating: 9 out of 10
There are few things in life as exciting or exhilarating as watching a good fight. Maybe it’s the primate in us, a deep evolutionary need to see two people beat the piss out of each other in order to prove dominance. Maybe it’s the need to see a champion, someone we can look up to and model our own lives after. Or, on a slight chance, it’s the glimmer of hope we huddle around to keep us warm and keep our dreams from fading away, the dream that one day someone will topple the champ and change the world forever. Now you might think those emotions only get woken up during a purely physical battle, but if so, you are truly missing out on some of the best battles in human history. Abraham Lincoln and Stephen Douglas debated seven times in 1858 for control of the Illinois legislature and those verbal fencing matches were a preview of the power and eloquence with which Lincoln would bring to bear in his time as President. Almost exactly one hundred years later, John F. Kennedy and Richard Nixon took to the airwaves for the first ever televised debate between Presidential candidates. Those four on-air matches drew numerous comparisons to their predecessors of nearly a century before. Even in our latest election a highlight truly arrived during our one and only debate between Vice-Presidential candidates, Sarah Palin and Joe Biden. While it might not have been the intelligence and skill in the fight we were all watching for, it still made for captivating television.
Yet one thing all those previous moments lacked was the dark cloud of obvious guilt and shame hanging over the head of Richard Nixon after he resigned the Presidency in disgrace over the Watergate scandal. A man who achieved amazing and brilliant things during his time in office was forced to step down and hang his head for something he was arguably not the first to do, just the first to get caught red-handed. I’m not defending Nixon, but in the context of political history, including any number of the documented and undocumented crimes committed by our still reigning President, Nixon was a lightweight. But for the American people of the 1960′s, his betrayal of the public office was the lowest they had seen a President stoop to and they demanded action. After newly sworn-in President Ford issued a complete and unequivocal pardon of Nixon, it seemed as though the American people were going to have to drink and eat whatever they could get their hands on to cover up the bad taste. But then one man stepped up to the plate, determined to give the people exactly what they wanted.
This is not just a history lesson; this is the premise and plot of Ron Howard‘s new film, Frost/Nixon. David Frost was a British talk show host who came up with the idea of interviewing Nixon after his resignation, but his original motives were not entirely altruistic. Mainly, he was a master of television audiences and he could feel the ratings he would get for such an interview would be outrageous. Once he locked the interview in place however, it became a monster he almost couldn’t control. The film is incredibly small in scale, beginning the year where Frost came up with the idea and ending within days after the interview was concluded. We get to see the build up to the big interview, but the actual recorded and tastefully lit chat between the two characters is really the lynch-pin on which the whole film rests. Thinking about the premise beforehand, it’s hard to imagine there being an incredible amount of tension in the movie-going audience, especially since we know what happens, but quality filmmaking and intelligent storytelling can make any old story seem new once again. By the time Frost and Nixon sit across from each other, microphones pinned to their lapels, handkerchiefs folded and makeup invisibly applied, the intensity is palpable. It was akin to watching a heavyweight boxing match, except one contender had never really felt the blow of a well-landed punch before. Once he does, the fear in his eyes truly brings the audience into his mindset. Luckily for us, both in the theater and in history, fear that might make some men run will make others fight all that much harder.
Ron Howard has been making movies for a number of years now and won a number of accolades and critical acclaim, but Frost/Nixon might end up topping them all. With a very simple story he found a way to display two very non-simple people. There is tension, anticipation and weight all brought to bear on a simple interview which ended up changing the lives of not only the people in the chairs, but the worldwide audience as well. Howard also got his two lead actors gift-wrapped, Frank Langella as Nixon and Michael Sheen as Frost. Both actors originally played their roles on stage to massive acclaim, so heading into the movie, they had these characters down cold. There is definitely a difference between playing a role on stage and playing it on film, but the internal work and preparation by these actors is a virtual treasure chest in comparison to what you get on most film sets. The moment they appear on screen, you can feel the depth and skill both actors gained from all their time put in. Frank Langella disappears into Nixon, truly embodying Nixon’s confident walk and sweeping movements of his arms, his imposing intrusion into people’s personal space, and finally the stoop — which on anyone else would have made them look old, but with Nixon is just made him look dangerous and determined. On the other side of the ring, we have Michael Sheen, who shined as David Frost, the plucky and charming television talk show host. There are some moments where Sheen is just listening to Langella rant on and on and Sheen displays an amazing level of intensity, fear and nearly overwhelming nervousness just by using his eyes. He doesn’t even have to move to show the wave after wave of emotional turmoil this man goes through while trying to go toe-to-toe with “Tricky Dick”. Both actors are strong contenders for nominations in the award season.
Beyond the powerhouse duo in front, there is a wealth of strong supporting cast. Sam Rockwell, one of Hollywood’s best go-to character actors, delivers an impassioned performance as James Reston Jr., one of the researchers on Frost’s team. He is the emotional anchor for the team, representing the anger, fury and bitter disappointment of the American people, and if there is one thing Rockwell does better than anything else, it’s playing disappointment and disdain (try poking your head into almost any scene in Choke). Right alongside Rockwell is another amazing talent, Oliver Platt, who plays Bob Zelnick, the more political structure based portion of Frost’s team. Platt continues to do his thing with great talent and shine without ever stealing scenes or trying to make the moment about him. He can be the star of the show if cast that way, but his true talent is blending into an ensemble and making everyone around him better for it. If you’ve never really experienced Platt, I would happily and heartily suggest Casanova and The Three Musketeers, both brilliant comedic performances. A little on the lesser-known side is Matthew Macfadyen, who plays John Birt, Frost’s manager, who continually rallies the troops and sticks by his side even when things are at their most bleak. Macfadyen brought a great sense of strength and loyalty that kept the audience in check and never giving up on Frost and his ultimate goal. As if we needed another name to add to the list, this will benefit all those addicts of the “Six Degrees” game, Kevin Bacon plays Jack Brennan, Nixon’s Chief of Staff and most devoted servant. Bacon lays it on thick, the dogged determination and defense of Nixon, even in the final moments when it all is slipping away. A solid job from an incredibly consistent actor.
Recommendation: If you like movies about important moments in American History, you should like this. If you like Ron Howard films, you should like this. If you like purely character pieces, you should like this. If you are looking for sex, drugs and rock n’ roll, you might wanna move on by. Lastly, if you are like me and try to watch everything on the Oscar nominated list, I’m putting good money this film will end up on there somewhere, whether for acting, directing or writing. Save yourself the rush of trying to track it down during awards season and catch it now. :: :: :: :: :: :: :: :: :: :: ::
Posted 3 years, 5 months ago at 11:25 pm. 1 comment
My eyes are shut. Please, please tell me when the crazed fans are gone.
Rating: 2 out of 10
There is not a person in the world who hasn’t heard the rags to riches story of J.K. Rowling and the legendary Harry Potter series of books. Those books, of course, led us to the movie franchise, which has generated so far over a billion dollars with three more movies to go (one for book six, while book seven will be split into two pieces). Yet as quickly as one legend is chiseled into stone, another one comes along, shaking the pedestal to knock down the reigning champion. Stephanie Meyer wrote the first book in her Twilight saga only 3 years ago and she is already hot on the trail of Harry Potter’s coffers. With the release of the fourth book, Breaking Dawn, the series as a whole has sold over 17 million copies and been translated into 20 different languages. So, with the literary world groveling at the feet of the Twilight series, begging for more, it was inevitable the movie world would come knocking. Does such a massive fan base guarantee success for the feature film adaptation?
Financially it always helps, but critically it doesn’t mean a thing. With an opening weekend of over $70 million dollars, Twilight is already a blockbuster and I’m guessing will finish up somewhere in the $400 million dollar range. This will mainly be due to the hordes of tween girls who will go see this repeatedly, like they did with Titanic, driving the box office receipts way past any critical value. Once you look beyond the dollar signs and the pre-pubescent obsession, the reality is this movie is barely watchable.
From the very beginning of the film it is terribly paced, trying to drain each and every sigh and wistful gaze from the moments on screen, which causes it to take over an hour to get to anywhere the least bit interesting. Finally, when that moment comes, it is over incredibly fast and done with such broad, clumsy strokes that banging your head against the chair in front of you begins to seem like a viable option to make yourself feel better. The whole thing drips with teenage melodrama, admittedly perfect for their direct audience, but to make a truly successful film it has to play to more than just a fraction of the populace. I’ve never had a problem appreciating a good movie, whether I was the correct demographic or not (look back on my review of The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants 2 if you need proof). The fact remains Twilight drags itself from scene to scene, on top of being badly performed. This is a shame to be added to the resume of normally skilled director Catherine Hardwicke, who I have personally raved to many people about her previous films, Thirteen and Lords of Dogtown.
Rob Pattinson, who plays Edward Cullen, the lovelorn vampire, has already ascended to fill the void left by Orlando Bloom from his Lord of the Rings days, but he has far from grasped what it takes to be an on-screen heartthrob. There is an art to the longing gaze, an inherent skill to the penetrating looks across the room, neither of which he possesses. He ends up coming off more like a borderline sociopath who might be suffering from any number of vitamin deficiencies. He also proves numerous times that opening your eyes incredibly wide doesn’t always emote intensity, some times it just comes off looking like you’re in pain. There are rare occasions when the lead actor can be propped up by the performance of his co-star, but this is not one of those times. Kristen Stewart, taking on the role of the lovestruck Bella, who although powerfully cute and physically perfect for the role, plays way too much with the awkwardness of meeting a boy you like before taking an enormous leap into the deepest love in the world. There is virtually no arc for her romanticism, it just appears instantaneously and is never doubted by either side. Also, without giving away any spoilers, there is something special about her character which draws her to her new vampire boyfriend, but yet again it is never explained or even explored. For the next film, which has already been signed and contracted, it would behoove whichever director it might be to watch Nick and Nora’s Infinite Playlist to see the correct way how to show two incredibly awkward teenagers fall in love without making the audience want to gouge out their own eyes. The painful and repetitive scenes between Rob and Kristen completely washed away James Van Der Beek and Katie Holmes from Dawson’s Creek, America’s previous winners for “Most Time Taken by a Fictional Couple to Just Get the Hell on with It!”
Not having read the book, and I pray it is better than the adaptation, there are also a number of things changed or altered from the vampire mythos. I’m all for new storytellers taking creative license and trying to make something traditional into their own, but the changes made here just ripped out the heart and soul of these maligned and tragic characters. From their over-romanticized reaction to direct sunlight to the absence of a single pairs of fangs in the film, all the creative team of Twilight succeeded in doing is making these characters the weakest and most pathetic vampires in movie history. I would make a comment about Buffy being able to take care of these poor specimens, but I honestly don’t think she would bother. She’d probably send Xander.
It was glaringly obvious that the movie was made with only one group in mind, the 12-14 year old girls, and if you were not a member of this group, you honestly didn’t matter. This tactic might make for a financially successful film, but the franchise will begin to suffer once its audience grows up between films and they start to be able to do more than just gape at a mysteriously gaunt boy on the big screen. My only hope is the studio learns from the Harry Potter series, which has gotten better and better as the films have gone on and they continue to satisfy the young fans of the books along with their parents and older siblings.
Recommendation: If your hair isn’t currently in pigtails, move along.
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Posted 3 years, 5 months ago at 9:14 am. 1 comment
Why did I park so far away on opening night. I’m gonna miss the previews!
Rating: 5 out of 10
There are characters out there so iconic, so ingrained into the hearts and minds of the viewing public, that when a new chapter in the series emerges we rush out opening weekend, our hands clutching popcorn and our eyes pasted wide. Only a chosen few have made it into this cherished realm of public trust, but none as long and as stylishly as James Bond. This weekend brought his newest episode, Quantum of Solace, and it marked the second in the reign of current Bond persona, Daniel Craig. He broke out the gates with extreme critical and public appeal in the remake of Casino Royale, but now it was time to see if he could keep up the excitement and appeal.
Excitement, yes. Appeal, less so.
Besides being incredibly well dressed at almost all times, Bond is known for action and this chapter goes for the gusto from the moment the cameras roll. The movie opens with an impressive car chase, which inevitably leads our hero from overcrowded roadways into a wonderfully photographed rock quarry. It was a bold choice to jump right into the action without any set up whatsoever, but for those out there who somehow avoided seeing Casino Royale, it definitely helps to understand where this scene fits in (approximately twenty minutes from the ending of the last film). Lots of gunplay, screeching tires and near misses bring the curtain up nicely, but having a strong opening does not guarantee audience support for the rest of the film. We need to be taken on a journey, not just shown an amazingly expensive episode of Fear Factor. There needs to be plot and story behind the action to raise it up, but Quantum had very little in the area of foundation.
The story jumps around incredibly fast, not enough to lose sense of what is going on, but just enough to not give us time to invest. The Bond movies seem almost addicted to making every scene take place in a different foreign country, which makes for some great camera shots, but terrible continuity of scenes. Also, much of this movie was sub-textually about James Bond mourning the loss of his love from the last film and barely controlling his rage while seeking revenge. We fully got the revenge motif, but the mourning was shown only in the thinnest of manners. A nicked photograph and an old necklace were the only links to his emotional center, but they were rarely used in the brief moments between gunfire and roof jumping.
On the adrenalin front, Bond delivers as usual. One of the nice changes I feel to the modern day Bond is the older films used to show him skillfully sliding from one place to another, jumping and landing perfectly on any surface and so forth, but Craig makes every leap seem based solely on guts and gusto, not tact and talent. Throughout the movie, he lands on balconies and terraces by crashing into some random piece of furniture. The only reason the bad guys don’t get away from him is the dogged determination which forms the core of who the Bond character is. I think the rougher, tougher Bond is an obvious reflection on society today and what we want to see in a hero. Not so much a person who can dodge a bullet, but one who can take two shots to the leg, one to the arm and an uppercut, yet still win the fight.
Surrounding Bond as always are a bevy of beautiful women and a cabal of agents, both on his side and against. Gemma Arterton was mentioned a while back, by myself and others, as a “Bond Girl”, yet in this episode she is actually not the top of that food chain. Olga Kurylenko is the alpha female here and is a much more complex character. In the beginning her and Bond are on completely different tracks, but over the course of ninety minutes of insanity their paths intertwine, both strategically and emotionally. While not being a complete knock out performance, she is steadily improving over her turns in the unfortunate back-to-back duo of Hitman and Max Payne. Gemma, definitely worth mentioning, does finally bring a little taste of the classic Bond, just enough for an homage to the old days of Connery and Moore. Her sultry style hearkens back to the female characters of the early films and makes us remember why we love to visit the world of Bond so much. Also, without revealing a blatant spoiler, her role brings up the most direct recall from one of the most well known Bond moments. Feel free to let me know if you see it (it’s hard to miss). Now Bond would be nothing without a dastardly villain to track down and capture and this time it’s provided to us by Mathieu Amalric. A very popular and well rewarded star in the French cinema, this marked the American debut of Mathieu, who played the corrupt CEO with the world’s creepiest stare, Dominic Greene. While I do understand not every Bond villain has to be one who can last a round with him in a fist fight, in fact many of them don’t fit that category, but something about the final confrontation between these two didn’t sit right. So much had to be stacked against Bond to make this even halfway feasible and even then I found myself wondering why it was lasting so long. In cases like this, I find it’s better to give the villain a skilled right hand man, who endures the final fight, and let the boss deliver a final speech before giving up or blowing up.
Orbiting around Bond are some other side characters, but the only ones worth mentioning are Judi Dench who returns to continue her role as M, Jeffery Wright as the CIA agent with a working conscience and Giancarlo Giannini as Mathis, the convict turned trusted friend of Bond. All of these actors did a fine job in their limited screen time, but even they couldn’t hold up the lack of plot or story connectivity.
Recommendation: Quantum of Solace is good for some action, but a lackluster follow-up to Casino Royale, the relaunch of the Bond franchise. The execs are going to have to wipe the drawing board clean once again and see if they can’t relight the spark they just had, because one more like this and the fickle crowd will start murmuring to fix the problem with yet another new actor as Bond, which is not the answer. Plus, in my humble opinion, Daniel Craig was born to play this part. So, catch the afternoon matinee if you are drawn to the tradition, but if not, try re-watching Casino Royale. Homemade popcorn is better anyway.
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Posted 3 years, 6 months ago at 9:16 am. Add a comment
Taking the ordinary and introducing it to the out-of-the-ordinary. That’s what Thomas McCarthy said about his films and their underlying stories. Actually, he probably put it a little more eloquently, but you catch the drift. This is indeed the core of nearly all filmmaking and good storytelling. It brings out the eternal question; What happens when the normal world is shifted, knocked askew by any number of forces and how will the people of that world react? Will they run? Will they freeze? Most importantly of all, what would we do in their shoes? Now before you apply these new questions to such deep and powerful films like Beerfest and Breakin 2: Electric Boogaloo, let’s start out with something a bit clearer.
The Visitor tells the story of Walter Vale, an economy professor listlessly wandering through his days pretending to be busy so he can negate any chance for human contact since the loss of his wife. He reluctantly makes a trip to New York for a conference and finds a young couple illegally renting his apartment in the city. Being a decent person, he allows them to stay while they look for a new place, but in return he gets much more than new roommates, he finds the doorway to a life which has been passing him by.
Thomas McCarthy creates a wonderfully simple and beautifully timeless world for us so we can bear witness to one of the great abilities in human nature, love. You can break almost any story down into a love story, but The Visitor is one dealing with numerous types of love in one tale. There is the love of music, shown when Tarek, the young man living in William’s apartment, teaches William about the African drum. Through this new musical outlet, William grows not only as a drummer, but as a person as well, allowing himself to open up to the world walking by him and becoming a participant instead of an invisible observer. There is the love of a young couple, shown by Tarek and Zainab, his girlfriend. They are both living in the country under constant fear of deportation, ignorant retaliation and learning to do what they can to get by, but their love for each other keeps them together and puts smiles onto their faces in even the darkest of moments. There is also the love of a mother for her son, shown through the brave journey of Mouna, Tarek’s mother who travels to New York after five days of not being able to reach her son on his cell phone. Sure, that could sound a touch paranoid, but it was the reality this family was living in which made her so concerned. Lastly, just to top off the love-fest, this also tells the story of love coming again to those who have closed themselves off to the idea. No matter what the circumstances, no matter how long it has been, love can always breach those defenses and wake up the heart once more. All these different versions of love are delicately woven together and paired up with a powerful political sentiment around our broken immigration policies and treatment of illegals. Coming off heavy handed is dangerous when dealing with these themes, so subtlety is the name of the game here and McCarthy handles it with the same skill and honesty he showed us before in The Station Agent. As a writer/director his record is incredibly strong, so I recommend keeping an eye out for anything bearing his name.
As with most small stories like this one, much of the weight and success falls on the shoulders of the actors and their ability to deliver realistic, believable and truthful performances. Casting becomes a type of “make-or-break” decision for the project and Thomas McCarthy came well prepared to the table. He had Richard Jenkins in mind for Walter Vale from nearly the beginning and stuck with him even after Richard told him that he would love to play the character, but the movie would most likely never get made with him as the lead. Richard wasn’t saying this out of any type of martyr complex, but he has been a character actor for a great many years without a starring role and he knew his name would not carry much weight on the playbill, yet even with that fact staring him in the face, Thomas stuck to his guns and fought for Richard. After winning all necessary battles, Richard walked into the role with such amazing depth and sensitivity garnering him incredible buzz and murmurs of Academy nominations. If he doesn’t reach the heights of the golden statue this time, he shouldn’t be too heartbroken because I have no doubt a number of the independent awards and smaller organizations are going to give notice and heap praise. There were such small and nuanced details to every moment he portrayed, it was impossible not to feel for him during this journey. From platonic caring to romantic longing, Richard proved once and for all he is a lead actor and one to be learned from. Also involved from near the inception of the story was Hiam Abbass, who played Tarek’s mother, Mouna Khalil. She really fit perfectly with the style and grace of Jenkin’s performance, showing a quiet, reserved, yet insurmountable strength which propelled her character to do absolutely anything to be there for her son. As for the young couple, Haaz Sleiman played Tarek and Danai Jekesai Gurira played Zainab. Both were quite good and held up the incredible level of commitment and quality already being displayed in the film. Haaz boldly followed his ark of being hopeful and optimistic about life in America to barely contained rage over his mistreatment from ignorance and fear. Danai displayed the other side of being a foreigner in this country, the side where they try as best as they can to keep to themselves and not interfere or be noticed for fear of being deported. Her struggle displays one of the true tragedies of the story, where the yellow brick road leading many immigrants to our shores and streets ends on cracked pavement and broken promises.
Recommendation: The Visitor is an amazing film which really brings out the depth of feeling we yearn for from independent cinema. It has had a long and slow burn on the film circuit and at this time can already be found on DVD, so do yourself a favor and buy, rent or borrow this movie as soon as you get the chance. If you’re lucky, the story of Walter Vale might even inspire you to continue on your own journey, wherever it may lead.
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Posted 3 years, 6 months ago at 9:13 pm. 1 comment
You know, it’s easier for me to tip you if the case opened the other way.
Guess I’m starting the flame war then?
“Wait a sec, she’s only thirteen?!”
This girl, she was on ‘Lost’. You’re going to tell me what the hell her character was really doing there. TELL ME!!!
Usually I just draw a happy face on the window, but to each his own…
) set him up well for the tone of the movie. He naturally settles into that protective “stay behind me even though I have no idea how to fight whatever this is” look. Taking on the role of the hometown sweetheart-turned-local trophy wife is 
) fame, plays the bad boy-turned-slightly-less bad boy who steals the high school sweetheart after Jensen bails from town. Kerr has always displayed a talent for playing characters with massive amounts of pent-up anger issues and Valentine offers plenty of that for him to revel in. All in all this post-teen cast holds its own fairly well, hitting all the right consciously bad notes where they need to be. No one watches these for Oscar-winning performances. What we want is attractive people to scream, kill or be killed and go down gloriously, which they all achieve fabulously.
) and as much as sequels are a cemented part of the horror movie tradition, it’s not one I think is paramount to making a good film. Sometimes the movie studios just need to make an effort to create a good film and let it have whatever life it will without stretching it out into a never-ending deluge of straight-to-DVD tripe. Instead of getting an “it’s not over yet” un-shocking moment in the closing minutes of the movie, I would much rather had a bigger, better and more gruesome climax with the remaining characters. It can be better to go out with a bang than to not go out at all.
I was told by a reliable source that black is the new black this year. 
DandyID
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