There are moments…many, many moments in fact…in Carlos Reygadas’ latest film that are so deeply moving, so utterly profound in their concept and execution, that I quite often sat in my seat, feeling my brain reaching towards the screen, desperately trying to grapple with what I was witnessing, all the while floating peacefully through the imagery.
This is an odd experience, I must say.
The film is an odd experience, though, so it worked out pretty well. Exploring the affair one man, Johan, has from a religious standpoint—instead of “I am more attracted to this woman than my wife,” it’s “God meant for me to be with this woman; being with my wife was a mistake”—is an interesting starting point, and even besides the film’s obvious capacity for visual revolution (I watch a lot of films, but there are shots in this film that I have never seen before), the film is still quite extraordinary. The plot may be spare, but the characters—despite appearances—are not, and the film’s…let’s be generous and call it an “even pace” (which is to say many will find it “slow”) felt totally earned, as it allows us a way into a community based largely on peace and reflection (the family prayer, which begins with the traditional “let us pray” and “amen,” is filled with silence until the father closes it), and to allow the weight of Johan’s decision and the impossibility of ever again finding that peace he so desperately needs (Cornelio Wall gives a fantastic performance that, for most of the film, is a new landmark in subtlety).
The film’s ability to be anything it needs to be at any moment—a pleasant family memory, a visceral confrontation with oneself, a spare reflection on finding peace—is achieved primarily in Reygadas’ form, which is constantly, overwhelming beautiful, always to an end. Whether it be the elliptical editing that accompanies the family bathing, the use of the sun as a light source to show us Johan and his lover’s affection for each other, the empty, unblemished solidarity of a funeral (white rooms haven’t been as captivating since 2001), or the aggressive presence of a ticking clock, the formal choices always inform what we take from it.
Would that Reygadas’ writing was up to the task his direction is (I should also note that the performances are uniformly astounding, and Reygadas made some of the best use of child actors, often allowing his form to work around the children while still maintaining the aura of total authorship). The story is quite lovely and thought provoking, but a few scenes don’t quite work on their own. The problem is that Reygadas’ dialogue is often overwrought without being particularly poetic. It’s as though his characters are trying to express deep thoughts about the nature of man and the union of marriage, but do not have the capacity to. If this were a creative choice Reygadas made, to illustrate the failure of man’s expression, I suppose it’s an interesting one, but it would still not be particularly successful.
Reading that over, it’s astounding how large a difference that should make, but how little it truly affects the impact of the film, one I’m wrestling with days later. I still have no idea what to make of the end of the narrative, but I’m more than a little okay with that. Godard once said that any great film is so because of some sort of misunderstanding; something elusive that cannot quite be grasped. Silent Light is absolutely that, and wonderfully so. I haven’t been so illuminated, so connected to the world around me, by a film all year as I was with Silent Light.
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Friday, May 29, 2009
Saturday, May 9, 2009
REVIEW: Star Trek
Before anything else…yes, I like summer blockbusters. Sometimes, I like them dumb. A quick sampling of films that J.J. Abrams’ latest calls to mind shows I love Bad Boys II, Armageddon, Mission: Impossible III, all three Pirates movies (yes…ALL of them), everything James Cameron has ever done, The Dark Knight, Iron Man, Spider-Man 2, Crank and Crank 2. Speed Racer was my third favorite film of last year. I love action movies, deeply and passionately, and I have no problems with the motivations behind big studios to make fundamentally vapid, but entertaining films. I have no problem with the Star Trek franchise. I believe a good film can be made from any premise.
But Star Trek is not a good film, and don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.
Let’s start with a question of form. Films ARE visual mediums after all, or so people say, so the decisions J.J. Abrams makes, visually, as a director should work toward defining the movie. What bothers me most about Abrams’ form isn’t that he has no idea how to frame a shot, or execute a camera movement. Or that he seems to NEED the camera to move, all the time, in every scene, no matter what. No, what I mainly remember of Abrams’ vision for the film is…really bright. And flashy. And glowy. And shiny. In fact, you’d be hard-pressed to find many shots in this film that don’t feature lights (either flashing or solid), lasers, or, when all else fails (and sometimes when all else showed up, ready for work) lens flares. I’m a guy who likes lens flares, but this got ridiculous, and unmanaged…most of their presence seemed accidental, and not in a way that lent a “verite” quality to the film, or any other quality.
Unless Abrams was trying to distract us from something…
Could it be the absolutely absurd story? It is probably the worst screenplay by Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman, who may not be the worst writers working in motion pictures today, but are surely the most prolific of all bad writers. And this accomplishment, their worst work yet, is a stunning achievement considering these were the guys who wrote The Island, Mission: Impossible III (which, again, I do like quite a bit), and Transformers (why does their presence seem so much more invasive than that, though?). What they’ve crafted here barely qualifies as a story, featuring people who barely qualify as characters, doing things and winding up in situations almost exclusively because the screenplay requires it.
Mild spoilers…
How, for instance, do Kirk and Spock get sent to the same planet at different times, by different people, yet they kind of just run into each other? Then they find Scotty just a few miles away? Isn’t this planet bigger than my neighborhood? Why would Spock mind-meld with Kirk when he ends up just telling him everything anyway? Just what was Nero (Eric Bana) doing during the twenty-five years between killing Kirk, Sr. and doing battle with Kirk, Jr.? And isn’t it kind of a coincidence that it took Spock the same amount of time to go through the wormhole as it took Kirk to grow up?
(for those who didn’t do their studying, the answers to the first two questions are “the screenplay needed them to, and badly,” number three is “yes, but it’s a big dumb movie and that excuses it from even the slightest of consideration of probability,” number four is “because studios believe audiences are incapable on watching people talk for more than a few seconds, and will revolt,” number five is, “waiting for Kirk, Jr. to grow up so the first scene can have something to do with the last,” but we also would have accepted “because the character exists only to be fought, but not in any way that explores the concept of evil, just more in a convenient way,” and number six is the same answer as number three; hope you were paying attention)
No more mild spoilers…
If there is a standout bright light amongst the onslaught of the neonist empire, it’s the main cast—that is, Chris Pine as Kirk, Zachary Quinto as Spock, and Karl Urban as McCoy. I’m told the success of the Star Trek concept rests on the relationship between these three (I have the most tenuous relationship with the series…generally liked what I saw, but saw very little, and never more than once), and I wish that were true, because these three are great, and to Orci and Kurtzman’s credit, they do consistently write likeable characters (although, upon writing that, I realized how noting that as some sort of accomplishment speaks volumes to their inability to do almost anything else).
Granted, Pine and Urban have almost nothing else to do besides be insanely likeable, but for Pine, in the lead role, that counts as an accomplishment, and he deserves the movie star status that will absolutely be awarded him in the next few weeks. The guy earns it. Considering his character never once doubts himself or has any internal conflict, it’s staggering that Kirk comes across as compelling a character as he does, and it’s all to Pine’s credit (with some clever lines on Orci and Kurtzmans’ end).
Quinto has the best role here, since Orci and Kurtzman actually take the time to give him some weight, and explore the natural struggle between his human side and his Vulcan side that was always inherent to the character. And Quinto totally delivers in every single moment he gets, always giving a hint in his expression of his emotions coming through, but a firm desire to suppress them (up until a point, of course).
The rest of the cast more or less does their job. Anton Yelchin is a very likeable actor, even with awful material (I can’t believe I made it all the way through Charlie Bartlett), and it’s the same here. His character, Chekov, is treated like a joke, but Yelchin’s gives him some genuine enthusiasm. Simon Pegg falls along the same lines as Scotty, only he invests even his moments in between great lines with comedy. Zoe Saldana and John Cho do about as well as can be expected of “hot love interest” and “Asian guy,” respectively, and Cho really delivers on a few key lines. Eric Bana’s a bad guy, and his character is one of the most dull in a sea of mediocrity, but he does well enough.
Oh, and for what it’s worth, Orci and Kutzman, especially with Abrams, do absolutely stunning first scenes, and this is their best yet. It’s an absolutely stunning space battle that, theoretically, sets up the stakes for what’s to come, and even though at no point did the rest of the film live up to the promise of that first scene, you can’t take that away from me. It gets off to a little bit of a rocky start, but once it’s moving, it’s a truly great action set piece, where the stakes just get higher and higher, and it’s genuinely moving and emotionally involving. Too bad about the rest of the film, though.
And that’s the biggest problem—the stakes are never very high, or at least they never FEEL as high as they should. You never really feel the danger. You might not guess the action of the next scene, but it’s not really a surprise when you get there, either. It all just sort of flows out in front of you, along Abrams’ constantly-spinning camera. And, honestly, and this is as simple as it gets in the end—I wasn’t entertained, for many of the reasons I just mentioned. I did not have fun.
If I seem overly snarky about this, I’m sorry. I generally try not to do that, but when a film comes along that looks like it’s going to be a massive success both with critics (done and done) and audiences, I get all the angrier (anyone who knew me around the time of Juno can attest to this). Star Trek isn’t outright awful, it’s just really, really not good.
But Star Trek is not a good film, and don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.
Let’s start with a question of form. Films ARE visual mediums after all, or so people say, so the decisions J.J. Abrams makes, visually, as a director should work toward defining the movie. What bothers me most about Abrams’ form isn’t that he has no idea how to frame a shot, or execute a camera movement. Or that he seems to NEED the camera to move, all the time, in every scene, no matter what. No, what I mainly remember of Abrams’ vision for the film is…really bright. And flashy. And glowy. And shiny. In fact, you’d be hard-pressed to find many shots in this film that don’t feature lights (either flashing or solid), lasers, or, when all else fails (and sometimes when all else showed up, ready for work) lens flares. I’m a guy who likes lens flares, but this got ridiculous, and unmanaged…most of their presence seemed accidental, and not in a way that lent a “verite” quality to the film, or any other quality.
Unless Abrams was trying to distract us from something…
Could it be the absolutely absurd story? It is probably the worst screenplay by Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman, who may not be the worst writers working in motion pictures today, but are surely the most prolific of all bad writers. And this accomplishment, their worst work yet, is a stunning achievement considering these were the guys who wrote The Island, Mission: Impossible III (which, again, I do like quite a bit), and Transformers (why does their presence seem so much more invasive than that, though?). What they’ve crafted here barely qualifies as a story, featuring people who barely qualify as characters, doing things and winding up in situations almost exclusively because the screenplay requires it.
Mild spoilers…
How, for instance, do Kirk and Spock get sent to the same planet at different times, by different people, yet they kind of just run into each other? Then they find Scotty just a few miles away? Isn’t this planet bigger than my neighborhood? Why would Spock mind-meld with Kirk when he ends up just telling him everything anyway? Just what was Nero (Eric Bana) doing during the twenty-five years between killing Kirk, Sr. and doing battle with Kirk, Jr.? And isn’t it kind of a coincidence that it took Spock the same amount of time to go through the wormhole as it took Kirk to grow up?
(for those who didn’t do their studying, the answers to the first two questions are “the screenplay needed them to, and badly,” number three is “yes, but it’s a big dumb movie and that excuses it from even the slightest of consideration of probability,” number four is “because studios believe audiences are incapable on watching people talk for more than a few seconds, and will revolt,” number five is, “waiting for Kirk, Jr. to grow up so the first scene can have something to do with the last,” but we also would have accepted “because the character exists only to be fought, but not in any way that explores the concept of evil, just more in a convenient way,” and number six is the same answer as number three; hope you were paying attention)
No more mild spoilers…
If there is a standout bright light amongst the onslaught of the neonist empire, it’s the main cast—that is, Chris Pine as Kirk, Zachary Quinto as Spock, and Karl Urban as McCoy. I’m told the success of the Star Trek concept rests on the relationship between these three (I have the most tenuous relationship with the series…generally liked what I saw, but saw very little, and never more than once), and I wish that were true, because these three are great, and to Orci and Kurtzman’s credit, they do consistently write likeable characters (although, upon writing that, I realized how noting that as some sort of accomplishment speaks volumes to their inability to do almost anything else).
Granted, Pine and Urban have almost nothing else to do besides be insanely likeable, but for Pine, in the lead role, that counts as an accomplishment, and he deserves the movie star status that will absolutely be awarded him in the next few weeks. The guy earns it. Considering his character never once doubts himself or has any internal conflict, it’s staggering that Kirk comes across as compelling a character as he does, and it’s all to Pine’s credit (with some clever lines on Orci and Kurtzmans’ end).
Quinto has the best role here, since Orci and Kurtzman actually take the time to give him some weight, and explore the natural struggle between his human side and his Vulcan side that was always inherent to the character. And Quinto totally delivers in every single moment he gets, always giving a hint in his expression of his emotions coming through, but a firm desire to suppress them (up until a point, of course).
The rest of the cast more or less does their job. Anton Yelchin is a very likeable actor, even with awful material (I can’t believe I made it all the way through Charlie Bartlett), and it’s the same here. His character, Chekov, is treated like a joke, but Yelchin’s gives him some genuine enthusiasm. Simon Pegg falls along the same lines as Scotty, only he invests even his moments in between great lines with comedy. Zoe Saldana and John Cho do about as well as can be expected of “hot love interest” and “Asian guy,” respectively, and Cho really delivers on a few key lines. Eric Bana’s a bad guy, and his character is one of the most dull in a sea of mediocrity, but he does well enough.
Oh, and for what it’s worth, Orci and Kutzman, especially with Abrams, do absolutely stunning first scenes, and this is their best yet. It’s an absolutely stunning space battle that, theoretically, sets up the stakes for what’s to come, and even though at no point did the rest of the film live up to the promise of that first scene, you can’t take that away from me. It gets off to a little bit of a rocky start, but once it’s moving, it’s a truly great action set piece, where the stakes just get higher and higher, and it’s genuinely moving and emotionally involving. Too bad about the rest of the film, though.
And that’s the biggest problem—the stakes are never very high, or at least they never FEEL as high as they should. You never really feel the danger. You might not guess the action of the next scene, but it’s not really a surprise when you get there, either. It all just sort of flows out in front of you, along Abrams’ constantly-spinning camera. And, honestly, and this is as simple as it gets in the end—I wasn’t entertained, for many of the reasons I just mentioned. I did not have fun.
If I seem overly snarky about this, I’m sorry. I generally try not to do that, but when a film comes along that looks like it’s going to be a massive success both with critics (done and done) and audiences, I get all the angrier (anyone who knew me around the time of Juno can attest to this). Star Trek isn’t outright awful, it’s just really, really not good.
Saturday, March 21, 2009
REVIEW: Duplicity
Michael Clayton, Tony Gilroy’s Oscar-nominated directorial debut, was one of my favorite movies of 2007, and it remains as compulsively watchable as the first time I saw it. I love the way Gilroy built and revealed his characters, the structure and delivery of the dialogue, and most certainly the performances.
I like Duplicity for a lot of the same reasons, just less so. Gilroy’s stepped up his compositions, especially the inspired credit sequence in which rival CEOs (Tom Wilkinson and Paul Giamatti), who will drive most of the plot, pummel each other on an airport runway in slow motion, wildly accentuating Giamatti’s expressive face. On the other end of the film, Gilroy knows how to use a last shot unbelievably well; as much as I love the final shot of Michael Clayton, this gives it a run for its money. A lot of his choices in the film – from shots that allow for the actors’ entire bodies to be in the frame to shots that linger after a scene is over – are also choices I just happen to like. It’s purely subjective, but hey, that’s the line of business I’m in.
And I recognize the biggest reason I’m really digging Gilroy’s directorial career – his choices are wildly in tune with stuff in movies I just dig. I love scenes of actors giving big, elegantly-worded speeches. I like the way actors in his two films deliver the lines. I like the framing. I like the pace. I like reversals, so long as they’re done right, and I like plot- and dialogue-oriented entertainment. And Gilroy does these things very, very well.
Taking a fun premise – a man and a woman, both products of espionage, fall for each other and team up to scam corporations for millions, along the way going back and forth on how far to trust the other – and extending it over years is an inspired move, and some of the film’s best moments deal either directly or indirectly with the toll this takes on Ray (Clive Owen) and Claire (Julia Roberts). That this results in a movie that’s not as much fun as I was led to believe (one comparison to Lubitsch’s Trouble in Paradise was wildly misplaced), but ultimately an immensely satisfying, often breezily entertaining (but never condescending) espionage-thriller-romance. In the day since I saw this film, I’ve only grown to like it more; I like where this is heading.
Scott can be reached at ScottN_86@yahoo.com
I like Duplicity for a lot of the same reasons, just less so. Gilroy’s stepped up his compositions, especially the inspired credit sequence in which rival CEOs (Tom Wilkinson and Paul Giamatti), who will drive most of the plot, pummel each other on an airport runway in slow motion, wildly accentuating Giamatti’s expressive face. On the other end of the film, Gilroy knows how to use a last shot unbelievably well; as much as I love the final shot of Michael Clayton, this gives it a run for its money. A lot of his choices in the film – from shots that allow for the actors’ entire bodies to be in the frame to shots that linger after a scene is over – are also choices I just happen to like. It’s purely subjective, but hey, that’s the line of business I’m in.
And I recognize the biggest reason I’m really digging Gilroy’s directorial career – his choices are wildly in tune with stuff in movies I just dig. I love scenes of actors giving big, elegantly-worded speeches. I like the way actors in his two films deliver the lines. I like the framing. I like the pace. I like reversals, so long as they’re done right, and I like plot- and dialogue-oriented entertainment. And Gilroy does these things very, very well.
Taking a fun premise – a man and a woman, both products of espionage, fall for each other and team up to scam corporations for millions, along the way going back and forth on how far to trust the other – and extending it over years is an inspired move, and some of the film’s best moments deal either directly or indirectly with the toll this takes on Ray (Clive Owen) and Claire (Julia Roberts). That this results in a movie that’s not as much fun as I was led to believe (one comparison to Lubitsch’s Trouble in Paradise was wildly misplaced), but ultimately an immensely satisfying, often breezily entertaining (but never condescending) espionage-thriller-romance. In the day since I saw this film, I’ve only grown to like it more; I like where this is heading.
Scott can be reached at ScottN_86@yahoo.com
REVIEW: Sunshine Cleaning
I should hate this movie, but I just can’t. I should hate its truncated screenplay, its stock characters, and its completely unconvincing ending, and I sort of do, but not enough.
There’s no doubt that the script for Sunshine Cleaning is, if not bad, then certainly incredibly uninteresting. Basically the story of two women down on their luck who start cleaning crime scenes to earn extra money, it’s earnestly written, and it’s clear first-time screenwriter Megan Holley loves her characters an awful lot. In a few spots she knows exactly what to have her characters say at exactly the right moment, but otherwise the dialogue is serviceable, but not terribly interesting. Structurally, though, everything is shoved so forcefully into the three-act structure, particularly at the beginning, that it’s more jarring than comfortable.
After awhile, though, the cast starts to win you over, Amy Adams in particular. This should come as little surprise to anyone who’s been going to the movies for the last few years, but Amy Adams is awesome. If the screenplay is earnest, Adams is so wholeheartedly. Completely throwaway moments like Rose (Adams) accidentally running into a friend from high school or her reaction to a compliment on her hair are completely infused with life, and scenes that in any other actress’ hands would be unbearably corny (I’m looking at you, CB radio to Heaven) are genuinely touching.
Emily Blunt and Alan Arkin also do well in extraordinarily stock roles (and Arkin’s is one he’s played before, but as my girlfriend said, it looks good on him). Blunt’s burn-out with a heart of gold and a shot at redemption is less convincing, but not for lack of effort; she just has a lot of ground to cover and make believable.
Walking out of the film, I commented that I liked it in spite of itself, and that holds. It’s a fundamentally flawed film, but the cast and evenhanded direction elevate it to an effective, warm little comedy.
There’s no doubt that the script for Sunshine Cleaning is, if not bad, then certainly incredibly uninteresting. Basically the story of two women down on their luck who start cleaning crime scenes to earn extra money, it’s earnestly written, and it’s clear first-time screenwriter Megan Holley loves her characters an awful lot. In a few spots she knows exactly what to have her characters say at exactly the right moment, but otherwise the dialogue is serviceable, but not terribly interesting. Structurally, though, everything is shoved so forcefully into the three-act structure, particularly at the beginning, that it’s more jarring than comfortable.
After awhile, though, the cast starts to win you over, Amy Adams in particular. This should come as little surprise to anyone who’s been going to the movies for the last few years, but Amy Adams is awesome. If the screenplay is earnest, Adams is so wholeheartedly. Completely throwaway moments like Rose (Adams) accidentally running into a friend from high school or her reaction to a compliment on her hair are completely infused with life, and scenes that in any other actress’ hands would be unbearably corny (I’m looking at you, CB radio to Heaven) are genuinely touching.
Emily Blunt and Alan Arkin also do well in extraordinarily stock roles (and Arkin’s is one he’s played before, but as my girlfriend said, it looks good on him). Blunt’s burn-out with a heart of gold and a shot at redemption is less convincing, but not for lack of effort; she just has a lot of ground to cover and make believable.
Walking out of the film, I commented that I liked it in spite of itself, and that holds. It’s a fundamentally flawed film, but the cast and evenhanded direction elevate it to an effective, warm little comedy.
REVIEW: Watchmen
This review contains massive spoilers, but if the box office is any indication, anyone who will see the movie already has.
Watchmen is a bad film with a lot of good elements and its heart in the right place.
That took me a week and a half to figure out. I’ve got to speed up my thought process.
Its heart is set on creating an intelligent examination and deconstruction of superheroes and crimefighters – how they relate to the world, what makes them dress up in outlandish costumes, and why we look up to them. The comic did this beautifully, of course; that goes without saying at this point. The movie works in some of the same respects. It brings up things like power fantasy, sexual gratification, corruption of power, but doesn’t seem invested in them.
First, though, Snyder’s no slouch behind the camera. His frames are elegantly composed, even when he deviates from the comic (which I wish he’d done more). The action scenes, as any smart viewer of 300 would know, are inventive and exciting, though not to the extent that they were there (the prison break comes close, but it was too similar to the hallway fight scene in OLDBOY to not make me remember that particular bit of genius). But Snyder’s too close to the material, too devoted to recreating something rather than adapting it (that said, he should have left the sex scene alone).
I recognize that in the adaptation process, things have to be lost. The problems with this adaptation arise because they cut out a lot of scenes, but don’t adjust, in the slightest, the scenes they keep. So you end up with a lot of Greatest Hits moments with no dramatic build to justify them.
When the film is at its best is when it adapts Watchmen to the medium, bringing in media elements like The McLaughlin Group or the stunning credit sequence, an absolute masterpiece of image, sound, and editing that had me convinced I was about to witness a masterpiece. It’s at its worst when it is absolutely intent on recreating the comic aesthetically, in everything from set design to dialogue.
I hate to rag on Alex McDowell’s production design, first because he’s done so much fantastic work in the past (Fight Club and Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas should be good graces enough for a lifetime*, never mind Minority Report), and second because I suppose he did a great job insofar as his instructions went, which seemed to be basically to build some stuff that looked like the comic. Somehow this didn’t bother me in the prerelease stage, as the giddiness for seeing the comic come to life completely blocked basic common sense. Maybe I just had to see it in motion to realize that this world simply did not look real. And for a movie so intent on integrating superheroes in the real world, that’s a big, big problem.
(*incidentally, I’m convinced that the only two people who would be fit to tackle this material would be David Fincher or Terry Gilliam, with heavy preference for Fincher)
The design works in the comic purely for that reason – it’s a comic book. The world can be stylized so long as we accept them as real. In film it’s different. Bending reality in a set allows for greater expression of the way a character perceives his or her world, or just for transporting us to another world. While you could argue Watchmen is supposed to transport us to another world, I don’t buy that the times have a-changed that much.
I don’t buy a lot of other things in the film. I don’t buy Dr. Manhattan’s decision to leave Earth (escape from the TV studio, sure, but there is no build-up there that makes me believe he needed to leave completely). I don’t totally buy Laurie and Dan’s romance, but I didn’t totally buy it in the comic (I certainly don’t buy their sex scene, the new example of the complete destruction of a great idea). I don’t buy any of the makeup or most of the special effects (Manhattan aside). I don’t buy Laurie or Sally as characters.
I sure as shit don’t buy the conclusion.
Don’t chalk it up to fanboy dedication either. When I heard they were getting rid of the squid, I thought it was the smartest decision I’d heard on the film yet (aside from casting Billy Crudup). The squid works tremendously in the comic because it’s the kind of thing that happens in comic books all the time, especially coming out of the Silver Age, but so far the most threatening villain in the modern superhero film has been a guy with clown makeup on. Audiences expect their threats from more human levels.
And on that level, the conclusion is a pretty nifty idea, but it doesn’t make any sense in terms of Veidt’s overall goal to unite humanity. If the idea with Dr. Manhattan is that he was America’s defense against pretty much everything, and that he was always the thing America could just show and be like “hey, don’t screw with us,” there is no way the rest of the world would rally alongside them. Even in a case where parts of America get destroyed, this was a man America built – partly through accident, partly through grooming – and he would absolutely be held as America’s responsibility, even if they bore part of the fallout. There would be months ahead of debating that responsibility, and MAYBE after that the world would find its common thread. But not immediately, not in a world where the Doomsday Clock is set five minutes to twelve. No way.
Billy Crudup and Jackie Earle Haley are incredible in their roles of Manhattan and Rorschach, respectively. Haley was doing a fine job before the prison sequence, but it wasn’t until that sequence that his performance became iconic. There’s a shot when he’s first being introduced to prison where he’s glowering just off-camera and his cheek twitches ever so slightly. It’s a tiny detail, but completely exemplary of the commitment Haley has to this role, particularly when he’s allowed to act with more than his voice and body.
Crudup, on the other hand, is absolutely perfect from his first moment onscreen to his last, and in without a doubt the toughest role in the film. He has to communicate a sense of humanity with dialogue that allows for none. Illustrating the isolation created by being the most powerful man on Earth, all the while being fascinated with the way it fits together, all the while being genuinely in love with a woman, all the while being able to genuinely recognize that she doesn’t belong with him…if the comic is, as TIME Magazine would have it, one of the greatest American novels of the modern era, Dr. Manhattan is without a doubt one of American literature’s greatest characters. And for all my bad feelings about the film, I will rewatch it many times over to take in Crudup’s performance.
Patrick Wilson and Jeffery Dean Morgan do really fine work as Dan Dreiberg and Edward Blake, respectively, hitting many of their notes consistently (Dan’s geeky excitement for adventuring and commitment to his ideals; Eddie’s charm), but falling behind on others. Dan doesn’t really feel as castrated as he did in the comic, and Eddie’s not nearly as much of a bastard, even when committing many of the same actions.
And that’s something I can say about a lot of Watchmen as an adaptation – same actions with so much less behind them. I’m interested to see Snyder’s cut, the full three-and-a-half hour bonanza with the Black Freighter stuff and forty additional minutes of the principle story. There is a lot that could be massively improved by being fleshed-out (Laurie, for example; not the strongest character in the comic, but here relegated to a footnote), but there is so much here that cannot be fixed, mainly the way the world feels much like Carla Gugino’s makeup – fake, a little cartoony, and unconvincing.
Watchmen is a bad film with a lot of good elements and its heart in the right place.
That took me a week and a half to figure out. I’ve got to speed up my thought process.
Its heart is set on creating an intelligent examination and deconstruction of superheroes and crimefighters – how they relate to the world, what makes them dress up in outlandish costumes, and why we look up to them. The comic did this beautifully, of course; that goes without saying at this point. The movie works in some of the same respects. It brings up things like power fantasy, sexual gratification, corruption of power, but doesn’t seem invested in them.
First, though, Snyder’s no slouch behind the camera. His frames are elegantly composed, even when he deviates from the comic (which I wish he’d done more). The action scenes, as any smart viewer of 300 would know, are inventive and exciting, though not to the extent that they were there (the prison break comes close, but it was too similar to the hallway fight scene in OLDBOY to not make me remember that particular bit of genius). But Snyder’s too close to the material, too devoted to recreating something rather than adapting it (that said, he should have left the sex scene alone).
I recognize that in the adaptation process, things have to be lost. The problems with this adaptation arise because they cut out a lot of scenes, but don’t adjust, in the slightest, the scenes they keep. So you end up with a lot of Greatest Hits moments with no dramatic build to justify them.
When the film is at its best is when it adapts Watchmen to the medium, bringing in media elements like The McLaughlin Group or the stunning credit sequence, an absolute masterpiece of image, sound, and editing that had me convinced I was about to witness a masterpiece. It’s at its worst when it is absolutely intent on recreating the comic aesthetically, in everything from set design to dialogue.
I hate to rag on Alex McDowell’s production design, first because he’s done so much fantastic work in the past (Fight Club and Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas should be good graces enough for a lifetime*, never mind Minority Report), and second because I suppose he did a great job insofar as his instructions went, which seemed to be basically to build some stuff that looked like the comic. Somehow this didn’t bother me in the prerelease stage, as the giddiness for seeing the comic come to life completely blocked basic common sense. Maybe I just had to see it in motion to realize that this world simply did not look real. And for a movie so intent on integrating superheroes in the real world, that’s a big, big problem.
(*incidentally, I’m convinced that the only two people who would be fit to tackle this material would be David Fincher or Terry Gilliam, with heavy preference for Fincher)
The design works in the comic purely for that reason – it’s a comic book. The world can be stylized so long as we accept them as real. In film it’s different. Bending reality in a set allows for greater expression of the way a character perceives his or her world, or just for transporting us to another world. While you could argue Watchmen is supposed to transport us to another world, I don’t buy that the times have a-changed that much.
I don’t buy a lot of other things in the film. I don’t buy Dr. Manhattan’s decision to leave Earth (escape from the TV studio, sure, but there is no build-up there that makes me believe he needed to leave completely). I don’t totally buy Laurie and Dan’s romance, but I didn’t totally buy it in the comic (I certainly don’t buy their sex scene, the new example of the complete destruction of a great idea). I don’t buy any of the makeup or most of the special effects (Manhattan aside). I don’t buy Laurie or Sally as characters.
I sure as shit don’t buy the conclusion.
Don’t chalk it up to fanboy dedication either. When I heard they were getting rid of the squid, I thought it was the smartest decision I’d heard on the film yet (aside from casting Billy Crudup). The squid works tremendously in the comic because it’s the kind of thing that happens in comic books all the time, especially coming out of the Silver Age, but so far the most threatening villain in the modern superhero film has been a guy with clown makeup on. Audiences expect their threats from more human levels.
And on that level, the conclusion is a pretty nifty idea, but it doesn’t make any sense in terms of Veidt’s overall goal to unite humanity. If the idea with Dr. Manhattan is that he was America’s defense against pretty much everything, and that he was always the thing America could just show and be like “hey, don’t screw with us,” there is no way the rest of the world would rally alongside them. Even in a case where parts of America get destroyed, this was a man America built – partly through accident, partly through grooming – and he would absolutely be held as America’s responsibility, even if they bore part of the fallout. There would be months ahead of debating that responsibility, and MAYBE after that the world would find its common thread. But not immediately, not in a world where the Doomsday Clock is set five minutes to twelve. No way.
Billy Crudup and Jackie Earle Haley are incredible in their roles of Manhattan and Rorschach, respectively. Haley was doing a fine job before the prison sequence, but it wasn’t until that sequence that his performance became iconic. There’s a shot when he’s first being introduced to prison where he’s glowering just off-camera and his cheek twitches ever so slightly. It’s a tiny detail, but completely exemplary of the commitment Haley has to this role, particularly when he’s allowed to act with more than his voice and body.
Crudup, on the other hand, is absolutely perfect from his first moment onscreen to his last, and in without a doubt the toughest role in the film. He has to communicate a sense of humanity with dialogue that allows for none. Illustrating the isolation created by being the most powerful man on Earth, all the while being fascinated with the way it fits together, all the while being genuinely in love with a woman, all the while being able to genuinely recognize that she doesn’t belong with him…if the comic is, as TIME Magazine would have it, one of the greatest American novels of the modern era, Dr. Manhattan is without a doubt one of American literature’s greatest characters. And for all my bad feelings about the film, I will rewatch it many times over to take in Crudup’s performance.
Patrick Wilson and Jeffery Dean Morgan do really fine work as Dan Dreiberg and Edward Blake, respectively, hitting many of their notes consistently (Dan’s geeky excitement for adventuring and commitment to his ideals; Eddie’s charm), but falling behind on others. Dan doesn’t really feel as castrated as he did in the comic, and Eddie’s not nearly as much of a bastard, even when committing many of the same actions.
And that’s something I can say about a lot of Watchmen as an adaptation – same actions with so much less behind them. I’m interested to see Snyder’s cut, the full three-and-a-half hour bonanza with the Black Freighter stuff and forty additional minutes of the principle story. There is a lot that could be massively improved by being fleshed-out (Laurie, for example; not the strongest character in the comic, but here relegated to a footnote), but there is so much here that cannot be fixed, mainly the way the world feels much like Carla Gugino’s makeup – fake, a little cartoony, and unconvincing.
Thursday, March 19, 2009
One of Those Things That Makes Me Love Being a Cinephile
Around the 15th of every month, I start to get a little giddy. Moreso since last December, when it was finally officially revealed that The Criterion Collection would be releasing Alain Resnais' Last Year at Marienbad, one of those true great New Wave avant-garde masterpieces that is, as it happens, not currently available on Region 1 DVD (and if you want to hit up Region 2, which is how I saw it, you have to deal with the most massive subtitles I've ever seen).
That waiting was rewarded on Monday, when they revealed the coolest damn set you could ask for. Two shorts by Resnais? New translation? Brand new documentary on the making of the film? Interview with Resnais? Interview with a film scholar? And most importantly, a Blu-Ray transfer? Heaven.
Then I notice a little something else...an updated release of The Seventh Seal? A movie I've been wanting to own for years but couldn't convince myself to fork over the money for a nearly barebones release? Oh, and it includes an 80-minute documentary on Bergman? Oh, and it's ALSO on Blu-Ray?
That's probably enough for me to handle. My inner film geek is overjoyed, and will have much to look forward and much to actually do in June when these are released (thankfully a week apart...my wallet and schedule can only handle so much).
And then something...odd...happened. Paramound announced the specs for The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, with a release date of May 5th. I knew the second I saw the film that, in spite of my misgivings about it, I would absolutely buy the DVD, probably the Blu-Ray. David Fincher almost always gets a great DVD out, even when the films make little to no money (Fight Club, Zodiac). I glanced down to the package art and noticed a familar "C" in the corner.
Yeah...The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, and more importantly Fincher, are getting a spine number.
Yeah, the script's a rehash of Forrest Gump, and besides that is massively overwritten with absolutely no confidence in its director or cast. But God, what direction. What images. And what a story. I've defended this film many a time, and even though I still remember every little thing I hate about it, I find I love it a little more each day. Anyone who truly loves films has a few like this in their stash - films that are anywhere from imperfect to irredeemably bad (Button falls somewhere in the middle), but which you cannot help but love. And though there are parts that I hate, there are parts of The Curious Case of Benjamin Button that I adore and am hopelessly in love with.
Three hours of special features and a commentary by Fincher? Criterion-supervised Blu-Ray transfer? No hesitation. I am in.
And yes, I know, I spent more time talking about a semi-decent David Fincher film than Bergman or Last Year at Marienbad. Wait 'til those discs come out and I'll gush all over them. Seriously. Big time.
Scott can be reached at ScottN_86@yahoo.com
That waiting was rewarded on Monday, when they revealed the coolest damn set you could ask for. Two shorts by Resnais? New translation? Brand new documentary on the making of the film? Interview with Resnais? Interview with a film scholar? And most importantly, a Blu-Ray transfer? Heaven.
Then I notice a little something else...an updated release of The Seventh Seal? A movie I've been wanting to own for years but couldn't convince myself to fork over the money for a nearly barebones release? Oh, and it includes an 80-minute documentary on Bergman? Oh, and it's ALSO on Blu-Ray?
That's probably enough for me to handle. My inner film geek is overjoyed, and will have much to look forward and much to actually do in June when these are released (thankfully a week apart...my wallet and schedule can only handle so much).
And then something...odd...happened. Paramound announced the specs for The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, with a release date of May 5th. I knew the second I saw the film that, in spite of my misgivings about it, I would absolutely buy the DVD, probably the Blu-Ray. David Fincher almost always gets a great DVD out, even when the films make little to no money (Fight Club, Zodiac). I glanced down to the package art and noticed a familar "C" in the corner.
Yeah...The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, and more importantly Fincher, are getting a spine number.
Yeah, the script's a rehash of Forrest Gump, and besides that is massively overwritten with absolutely no confidence in its director or cast. But God, what direction. What images. And what a story. I've defended this film many a time, and even though I still remember every little thing I hate about it, I find I love it a little more each day. Anyone who truly loves films has a few like this in their stash - films that are anywhere from imperfect to irredeemably bad (Button falls somewhere in the middle), but which you cannot help but love. And though there are parts that I hate, there are parts of The Curious Case of Benjamin Button that I adore and am hopelessly in love with.
Three hours of special features and a commentary by Fincher? Criterion-supervised Blu-Ray transfer? No hesitation. I am in.
And yes, I know, I spent more time talking about a semi-decent David Fincher film than Bergman or Last Year at Marienbad. Wait 'til those discs come out and I'll gush all over them. Seriously. Big time.
Scott can be reached at ScottN_86@yahoo.com
Thursday, March 12, 2009
Revisiting the Classics
So last week my girlfriend and I popped Citizen Kane into the DVD player. It's a weird thing to do. Like my girlfriend said, it seems like you should have to do something special when watching THE GREATEST MOVIE EVER MADE, but really we just hung out and watched it like any other movie. And dammit, it might not be the best, but there's a damn good reason it's called the best. Neither of us had seen it in years, and it seems like the sort of movie you should be able to discuss with some authority if you care about movies.
Just watch the way Welles takes absolute command of the film as a performer (his command as a writer and director should be of no contest by this point). Listen to the way the dialogue sings as it bounces from performer to performer. As with so much of the film, nearly the whole scene is done in a single shot. And look at that camera MOVE, man. God, when was the last time you saw a camera move like that? At that pace? For that long? In a movie that old?
Then, a few days ago in New York, we saw Bringing Up Baby at the Museum of Modern Art. It's a film I love dearly, but it was the first time I saw it projected in 35mm. Not that it's a terribly visual film - as was Hawks' way, he mostly set up the shots to get the action. Really, the pleasure is seeing it with a crowd and not feeling like a loon (pun intended) when you burst into laughter.
"Hello? Is that zoo?" It's a tiny line that's given no time to let its hilarity sink in, but it's the kind of touch that makes the movie what it is.
Just watch the way Welles takes absolute command of the film as a performer (his command as a writer and director should be of no contest by this point). Listen to the way the dialogue sings as it bounces from performer to performer. As with so much of the film, nearly the whole scene is done in a single shot. And look at that camera MOVE, man. God, when was the last time you saw a camera move like that? At that pace? For that long? In a movie that old?
Then, a few days ago in New York, we saw Bringing Up Baby at the Museum of Modern Art. It's a film I love dearly, but it was the first time I saw it projected in 35mm. Not that it's a terribly visual film - as was Hawks' way, he mostly set up the shots to get the action. Really, the pleasure is seeing it with a crowd and not feeling like a loon (pun intended) when you burst into laughter.
"Hello? Is that zoo?" It's a tiny line that's given no time to let its hilarity sink in, but it's the kind of touch that makes the movie what it is.
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