A couple of best friends making a movie like no other
Woody Harrelson is a pioneer! On Friday, January 19th at 9 PM EST, he livestreamed his movie, Lost in London,in 301 movie theaters, as it was being filmed! It was like live theater, except that the action is in 14 different locations around London. The 100-minute movie was made in one shot with only one camera. It was livestreamed in 300 cinemas in the US, except for one, which was in London, where it was the wee hours of the morning, when its streets were most hospitable to a movie crew.
Woody Harrelson wrote, directed and stars (as fictional Woody Harrelson). Such innovation…yet there are only three reviews on Rotten Tomatoes!
Did critics have better things to do on a Friday night? Did they boycott Woody Harrelson for his well-known lifestyle of pot smoking? Or was it because this innovation was not purveyed by a master auteur of cinéma?
No matter. I had google to back me up and found plenty of reviews.
LOST IN LONDON
Plot: With a subtitled preface that reads, “Too much of this is true,” Harrelson’s film is a dramatization of the events of a horrible night he experienced in 2002 when he was living in London while starring in a play on the West End. He thought that all of the events of that night would make for a great comedy. He rounded up a cast of 30 that includes Owen Wilson and Willie Nelson, and an additional 320 extras.
Even more ground breaking: SPOILER FREE PREVIEWS! (OK, not so astounding, given there are no filmed scenes to preview.) I saw three previews: one way too long (celebs, ad nauseum tells him he can’t do it), one a tad long (just him holding up silly photos), and one just right (just him).
[Apparently I now have to pay WordPress to embed videos, so I can only give you links.]
Spoilers Skimmable: yes. There were very, very few!
Bottom line: I’ll let the title of the review say it:
Woody Harrelson breaks boundaries with supercharged Allen-esque live film. 3/5 stars
More: it was very funny!
One thing though: the filming is in real-time, but the story is not. At one point we are asked to believe that a couple of hours have passed. Kind of hard to do when the whole thing is live in one shot.
Spoilers skimmable? Yes. There are many, but you can skim over them.
Bottom Line: It was just OK, but the spectacle was great.
When perfect is boring: McHenry thought it would be cool if there was a mistake in the acting or filming because it would be fun–probably because the audience would be in on it. But it went off without a major hitch, and was even boring in places! When he was bored, he focused on the artistry: “single take films [like Birdman], have been shot before, but Lost in London had to get everything right live.”
Spoilers skimmable? No. The whole review is spoilers, except for the subtitle.
Bottom line: movie is meh, but technological livestream accomplishment is “astounding.”
Expectation:Lost in London was better than we could expect a movie from a first-time pot-head-hippie director.
Can’t put this any better:A daft idea, the kind of mad, experimental challenge dreamed up by stoned film nerds after a Hitchcock all-nighter, but one he pulled off with considerable wit and brio.
WIDE RELEASE
Although there have been no announcements about a post-live release, says The Hollywood Reporter, the filmmakers “are in discussions” about releasing the movie.
Through a google search gone awry, I stumbled upon Omaha.com. While there, I discovered movie critic Micah Mertes. (He’s a “World-Herald staff writer.”)
I like his reviews–they’re entertaining and, most importantly, not spoiler laden.
Plot: Greg and Earl are pals who like to make alternate versions of classic movies. At the request of his mother, Greg befriends Rachel, who is dying of Leukemia. They soon become a trio, hence the title.
Spoilers skimmable? yes, it can be done.
Bottom line: 2/4 stars. Premise sounds good, but it doesn’t work: “it struggles to say anything meaningful.”
Greg sounds like he’s one of those people who insists he failed a test, only to find out he got an A. This is what Mertes says:
“What is Greg’s deal, anyway? He thinks he’s ugly and unlikable despite being friends with nearly everyone….His ironical detachment and self-imposed high school exile feels contrived, a necessary starting point for his navel-gazing journey to come.”
Them’s fighting words!
But there’s more. Here’s some biting sarcasm:
“Not only does Greg get his very own dream girl to help him reach his best self; he gets a terminally ill one. What a meaningful experience for Greg!”
Plot: at a high school party, someone plants some drugs into the possession of “smart, lovable nerd” Malcolm and his two “hipster dork” friends, who all live in a poor, crime-ridden section of LA. The trio concocts an unusually “nerdy plan” to avoid murderous drug dealers and suspicious cops. Hilarity ensues.
Spoilers skimmable? Yes. No real spoilers. But then again, this is a short review.
Bottom line: 3.5/4 stars. It’s good! Unlike “Me, Earl and the Dying Girl,” it’s entertaining, has good characters and has something to say:
“This fizzy mix of John Hughes, ‘Boyz in Da Hood’ and your Tumblr account is a supremely entertaining comedy with a side of timely racial commentary.”
The film is “disjointed” in parts, but it has “fantastic energy…..[that] drives the film.”
Emily and Alex have just moved to LA with their young son. At their son’s new school, they meet another parent named Kurt (Jason Schwartzman), who invites them over to his home for dinner for a “playdate pizza party.” Emily and Alex, played by Taylor Schilling and Adam Scott, accept the invitation. After dinner, Kurt and his wife (Judith Godrèche) convince them to stay over for the night. Awkward, weird sexual innuendos ensue. (Don’t worry, their sons are soundly asleep upstairs.)
Spoilers skimmable? Yes, just tread carefully.
Bottom line: 3/4 stars. “It wants to make you laugh, but it really wants to make you squirm. It’s fairly successful in the former but a masterwork in the latter.”
That’s quite a testament!
Unlike the other two movies, Mertes does not overtly mention an underlying theme. He does calls it “a sex comedy and one that is blithely, defiantly uncomfortable.”
There’s an underlying theme to this review–our discomfort surrounding sex and sexual innuendos.
Plot: Worldwide food crises that wipes out most of humanity. Only hope for human survival is to find another planet to live on. Guess who goes on a mission to find that planet? Mathew McConaughey will boldly go where no man has gone before, sans Captain Kirk, through both a wormhole and a black hole. (Don’t really know what that means.)
Who’s your daddy?
Spoilers: Not really! YAY! Hammond stresses that he doesn’t want to spoil the movie. There are a couple of harmlessly tiny clips.
Bottom line: Go see it! Everything about this movie rocks. acting, plot, cinematography. And plenty of meaning: “It’s a small human drama set against” the big expanse of space. It is about connecting to each other as human beings, time and other themes.
No worries: You don’t have to know the science to understand what’s going on. (Phew!)
John Hammond Rules: He can still analyze the movie without spoilers.
Of interest: Directed by Christopher Nolan, who co-wrote this with his brother Jonathan.
Plot: It’s all about revenge. Why? Well, first JW’s wife dies. Then his wife leaves a posthumous gift (imagine the executor of that estate), a puppy, who is later killed. Needless to say, JW is a retired killer who was living a humble life (that part I assume) and has to–nay has a moral obligation to– avenge the puppy’s death.
Spoilers: None. Although spoilers are necessary to tell how great the action is, Mendelson explains, “[t]here are no spoilers here.”
Bottom Line: Great Action flick, giving most people what they want: “to see Keanu Reeves shooting bad guys and looking good while doing it. And you will absolutely get your money’s worth.”
No really, who’s your daddy?
Oh yeah, baby.
More positives–“terrific action, engaging characters, and an interesting world….John Wick is the full package and one of the best action films of the year.”
One thing: Mendelson can’t stop talking about the movie’s “world.” He calls it “an example of successful world-building that benefits the story rather than distracting from it.” In fact, Mendelson states, it lends itself to the characters’ fates.
Hmm….
I believe what he is saying is that there are no superfluous scenes, such as those about past triumphs that show cool but irrelevant inventions, a là James Bond. And that the world is not another character, a là Manhattan in Woody Allen movies. Although, sometimes I think it’s a cool part of action movies, a là James Bond.
Scott Mendelson Rules: Thank you for trusting your readers to grasp the obvious. Most critics have been pointing out that this is not a deep movie full of symbolism and underlying themes. Mendelson does not.
Speaking of interesting: He explains that movies today emulate the action within video games because it is “fluid” with stops and starts, and not over-stylized, which is a good thing–or at least that’s what I think he is saying.
Great format ofForbes’ reviews: Three sections, all subtitled: 1. “Thumbnail,” one or two sentence low-down; 2. “The Box Office,” a prediction of how much money the movie will take in, prefaced by an in-depth ho-hum, enough-already analysis. Thankfully, you can skip this and go directly to 3. “The Review.”
Irony: I look a lot more deeply for meaning in a review of a movie that lacks meaning.
This week I look at reviews of Love is Strange, starring John Lithgow and Alfred Molina as a gay couple, who, after being together for 39 years, get married. Shortly thereafter, Molina’s character loses his job and they can no longer afford to pay their mortgage. So they sell their apartment and put themselves on a wait list for senior or middle-class housing. While they wait, where should they live? They decide to live in two separate households. The movie is about the dynamics between them while they live apart as well as those between each husband and his host.
It contains the a perfect example of verbiage that’s a RED FLAGwarning of trouble ahead (as in an imminent spoiler).It’s tricky because it is smack in the middle of a sentence:
The cinematographer was Christos Voudouris, who captures the movie’s most touching moment. It’s–
WARNING! AVERT YOUR EYES! DO NOT READ ANOTHER WORD! He’s about to tell you the movie’s most touching moment!
Bottom Line: The movie is not believable. A true Wall Street Man, Morgenstern cannot get over how low they sold the apartment for. (It takes place in Manhattan.)
Comment: I caught an inaccuracy! Morgenstern states that the couple has been together for 20 years. Read some other reviews and it is obvious that he’s way off. They have been together for 39 years. (I feel really good about myself. I’m sure this is obvious, but I’m quite clever.)
Bottom Line: Grade B. The acting is terrific, the story weak.
Comment: Srago objects to some of the plot line because two sophisticated artsies (Lithgow plays an painter, Molina a music teacher) should be creative enough to find a solution to their financial problems:
Isn’t leading a cultured life supposed to make you imaginative and resourceful? Not in “Love Is Strange,” an affecting, oddly awkward movie about an artistic and surprisingly helpless New York couple – painter Ben (John Lithgow) and music teacher George (Alfred Molina).
Their solution is creative. Just not the good kind of creative.
Spoilers: Where do I begin? Spoilers here, spoilers there, spoilers spoilers everywhere! Her opinion is only in two sentences. To support those two sentences, she spares us nothing, including how the ending unfolds.
Thanks, Dana.
More RED FLAG verbiage. She starts a sentence out like this:
In one of the best scenes,–
WARNING! AVERT YOUR EYES! DO NOT READ ANOTHER WORD!She is about to describe one of the best scenes!
Wait, who wears the beard in this couple?
Bottom Line: Once you get over the somewhat unbelievable premise, this is a “quietly enchanting romantic drama….a delight to watch unfold….[and] one of the best romances I’ve seen all year.”
Comment: Stevens really hams it up–this is her last sentence: All the actors except Burrows are so sharp, and the dramatic outline so fuzzy, the movie is like a botched pointillist painting.
First she stereotypes artists and then she jumps into their world with her clever metaphor. Is she taking liberty with art’s very soul? (I don’t quite know what that means, but something doesn’t sit well with me.)
It stars Micheal Fassbender, who plays an avant-garde comedian and musician loosely based on “Frank Sidebottom”, the alter ego of British comedian Chris Seivey. Throughout the movie, Fassbender wears a giant head with a cartoonish face painted on it–similar to the giant head worn by real Frank Sidebottom/Chris Seivey.
Fassbender’s character hires Jon, a young musician to play keyboards on his next album. The recording is done in a remote cabin in Ireland. Hoping that Frank’s talent will rub off on him, Jon obsessively hovers around Frank, trying to dissect his creative process. Maggie Gyllenhaal plays the drummer, who often locks horns with Jon.
Michael Fassbender (the guy with the mask on his head) with his director, Lenny Abrahamson (the guy with the hat on his head)
The character of Jon is based on Jon Ronson, who in real life is the keyboard player on Frank Sidebottom’s album, which was recorded in a remote town in Ireland. The plot of the film is not what happened in real life. To see what the true story is, check out Jon Ronson’s book, “Frank: The True Story that Inspired the Movie.” (That is the title, I kid you not.)
Ironically, Jon Ronson co-wrote the screenplay.
In the movie Fassbender’s band is called “SORONPRFBS.” In real life the name was “Oh Blimey Big Band.” That goes to show how loosely it is based on real life.
Let’s turn to the reviews, shall we? Here are three reviews; I like how they all talk about the film’s theme:
1. Australian ABC
At the Movies with Margaret and David
This is the Australian Broadcast Network, not affiliated with the American Broadcast Company.
Welcome to my world! Meet Frank Sidebottom, the inspiration (meaning: this is not Michael Fassbender)
Spoilers: Aside from one comment that alludes to the outcome, the spoilers are harmless and help explain the plot.
Theme: The heart of the film is about this young man Jon who desperately wants access to the talent that Frank has, but maybe just doesn’t have what it takes. It’s also about mental illness and the layers that are needed to protect fragile psyches.
Bottom Line: “This film is a total original…. It’s funny, it’s poignant and really touching.”: “Terrific” acting, “beautiful” directing (by Lenny Abrahamson), coupled with a “just wonderful” star turn by Fassbender.
Note: Review wraps up with a warning that this film is for “more adventurous cinema-goers.”
(Not a great way to encourage people to see this film, not to mention get viewers to expand their horizons.)
Spoilers: Chock full of them. I skipped over some parts. But I did get the gist of the review.
Theme: About the compromises and conflicts of art, stardom, and mental illness.
Bottom Line: [Fassbender’s acting] is a beautiful performance, and it makes this weirdly sincere and gentle film memorable….[and] seems to show his character’s ups and downs through his body language, reminiscent of creating art.
Comment:This review comes off as a tad pretentious in the way it talks about the Artiste and the creative process. But I’m a hypocrite because I love talking about the creative process (mine espeially…)!
The real Frank Sidebottom with co-screenwriter Jon Bronson
Spoilers: Not bad until the last paragraph, which gives away the ending, and it sounds like no detail was spared. People, don’t read this review. Holy cow.
Theme: Frank’s mask, representing the artist as the anti-celebrity and a wall against social-media fame-whoring, is the film’s driving metaphor.
Bottom Line: He liked it a lot. I can’t quote him because his praises contain spoilers. Yeesh.
Comment: I went to Rolling Stone for a review because it covers rock music and pop culture, but was disappointed.
Michael Fassbender stays in role as he commutes into work (I have no explanation of the people behind him sharing the platform)
Review from Movie Date, weekly segment (Fridays) on NPR’s The Takeaway
Podcasts or live on Fridays on NPR
The Takeaway’s culture producer Kristen Meinzer and Newsday film critic Rafer Guzmandiscuss movies, à la Siskell and Ebert, with one GREAT exception—
NO SPOILERS!!!
The duo discuss each movie in less than a minute: no long, drawn-out discussions. In a few seconds we get all the info we need to decide whether to see a movie.
Plot: Superheroes in space
Bottom Line:
She said (Kristen Meinzer): hates superhero movies and this one has everything that she hates about them: cliches galore, vacuous plot, bad dialog, bad acting.
He said (Rafer Guzman): not a fan of superhero movies, but he would recommend this one. It’s a great ensemble piece that is funny and smart.
Comment: In other words, if you hate superhero movies, stay away. If you are neutral, go see it–it’s a good one. If you like or love superhero movies, then, baby, this one’s for you!
The great, ubiquitous Brendan Gleeson (the priest here, but also the one-eyed pirate character in the Harry Potter series.)
Honeycuttshollywood.com
Review by Kirk Honeycutt, former chief critic of the Hollywood Reporter
Plot: A whodunit, prequel version: in the confessional box, a parishioner tells Father Lavelle, (his priest, played by Brendan Gleeson) that he’s going to kill him and gives the priest one week to get his things in order. Father Lavelle recognizes the voice as that of one of his parishioners, but doesn’t know which one.
The priest talks to his parishioners, one at a time. Honeycutt describes them this way: “Each and every parishioner is a flamboyant figure of comic dysfunction, nihilism or misanthropy.”
Bottom Line: It’s a dud. Flat characters are caricatures whose ailments and conditions we are suppose to take seriously.
Comment: This review is organized effectively: rather than starting out with the plot of the movie, Honeycutt begins with his chief criticism–the characters–and then explains the plot. This works well because the the characters are the backbone of the movie.
However, this sardonic, cynical review comes off as arrogant.
Note: Honeycutt’s opinion seems to be an exception–most reviewers like this movie.
Movie sounds much better when you read my fellow blogger‘s review, where he describes the main theme of the film:
Will Father Lavelle die for our sins?
4 Minute Mile
dfw.com (Dallas Fort-Worth news and entertainment site, one of the the networks owned by Star-Telegram.com)
Spoilers: Too many! It gives away the problems, tragedies, troubles, etc that the two leads have had in their lives. It sounds like this may be one of these movies where you gradually learn what lurks beneath the anger of these characters. If that is the case, then the Darling’s review, as my mother would say, is N.G. (Not Good).
Plot: High school track star (played by Kelly Blatz) has anger management problems, due to major troubles at home in a “run-down neighborhood.” After a fight with a teammate, he quits the track and field team. Along comes a former track coach (the great, ubiquitous actor, Richard Jenkins), who has anger issues and drinks too much. Can the coach find redemption by helping the kid? Can the kid find redemption from the help from the coach? Can we find redemption by watching this low-budget indie?
Bottom Line: Thumbs up. It avoids “slip[ping] into cliches so easily…it’s a moving, if occasionally heavy-handed, sports drama that deserves a wider audience than it is probably going to find in its limited release.”
On a personal level, I really want to see the first two movies (yes, I love superhero movies). The third one–I’d watch on Netflix.
At last it’s here! The tour de force that took the film fest circuit by storm, the film that blew 99% of RottenTomatoes critics away. The movie is about a boy’s life from the day he enters first grade through his first day in college. What makes this film ground breaking is the way the boy and the other characters age during those 12 years. Richard Linklater, the director and writer, did not use a series of actors to play the boy at different ages. Nor did he use makeup or camera work to make the actors look like they aged.
What he did use: real time. The film was shot over 12 years; each summer he’d film with the same actors for a couple of days up to a week. So that the actors aged alongside their characters.
For example, Ellar Coltrane, the actor who plays the boy of the title, was 7 years old when filming began and 19 when the film was completed. Ethan Hawke and Patricia Arquette, who play his parents, were in their early 30’s when production began.
Since all the pundits agree that this movie is worth seeing, I reviewed movie reviews by critics from lesser-known sources who prove, once again, that there is a fine line between pretension and poetry.
Spoilers: After 12 years of movie-making, is this critic really going to ruin the experience with spoilers? You betcha. Skip this review.
Bottom Line:
Boyhood will be the benchmark for artistic achievement and cinematic scope.
Pretentious or Poetic? This is what review says about the movie’s focus on mundane events in the boy’s life:
We forget the big impacts on our lives, and instead concentrate on the smaller things….As we grow older, those hours suddenly shift into minutes which then turn into seconds. Before we know it, all that’s left are impressions. We eventually refer to them as memories, but over the long haul, many of those memories don’t represent the things we actually want to remember. Instead, they are just points on a map, dots we eventually connect when we’re feeling wistful. We’ve arrived at the destination, unsure of how we got there.
Spoilers: Not spoiler-laden, but the spoilers he includes are doozies.
Bottom Line: Grade A, despite the fact that, as Rainer says,
Linklater’s risks in this film are as much aesthetic as practical, and occasionally they don’t pay off. Sometimes banal is just banal. There are boring stretches during which I would have welcomed a little Hollywood hoo-ha.
Pretentious or Poetic? This is what the review says the movie’s theme:
The fact that the film, for the most part, is a triumph owes something…to the very nature of the project itself. Linklater has always been captivated by the mysterious passage of time in his movies, no more so than in his great “Before” trilogy, filmed over 18 years and starring Hawke and Julie Delpy. But “Boyhood” is something else again: a movie about time’s passage that is itself an expression of that passage. It’s the ultimate time-travel movie into the future, a “flowing time sculpture,” in Linklater’s own words.
Bottom line: The film received 5/5 stars. (I’m so totally annoyed by the spoilers.)
Pretentious or Poetic? A metaphor that runs through this review:
On hearing about the latest film from Richard Linklater, the reasonable observer might cautiously summon up one of Samuel Johnson’s more caustic (and sexist) one-liners: “A woman’s preaching is like a dog’s walking on his hind legs. It is not done well; but you are surprised to find it done at all.”
Mid Review—
In short, Boyhood has at least the novelty value of Dr Johnson’s famous dog. Nobody has ever done anything quite like this before.
Review’s Conclusion–
Then again, it is every kid’s story. That’s what happens when you blend the universal with the particular to such extraordinary effect. Forget Dr Johnson. It is done very well indeed.
Guess what I found when I went onto ESPN to check out World Cup Highlights? Grantland, a branch of ESPN’s website devoted to sports and pop culture. It has articles, podcasts, video-casts and its own channel on Youtube.
Pop culture and sports? Go figure. Because I can’t.
I viewed the video-cast (below) entitled Straight to Video: Which Low-Budget NOTbusters Should You See This Summer?
In the 4 minute, 27 second video, the hosts, Grantland writer Wesley Morris and former MTV guy Chris Connelly, have an intelligent, delightful discussion about Snowpiercer, a Korean, low-budget movie. Although it has a “superhero movie construction,” it will never be a blockbuster because it can’t compete with the big (read $$$$) Hollywood movies. The co-hosts think that word of mouth and twitter and other media will help promote the movie.
The video-cast has very few spoilers, if any. Though I did skip the film’s preview.
EEK!!! (Tilda Swinton)
Its plot: sometime in the future a failed experiment to fix global warming obliterates the planet. There are survivors who jump aboard the Snowpiercer, a train that continuously circles around the world. Soon a class system evolves and apparently there is an uprising.
Its “big cast” includes Tilda Swinton–the guys commented with amusement that if Tilda S. is in a film, you know it’s going to be weird. She plays the leader of the ruling class. All you have to do is take one look at her in the promos and you know that she is one scary screwed-up leader. I hope that she isn’t over the top.
The head of the rebels is Captain America’sChris Evans, who is also in Divergent.
I want this movie to be good, because a couple of years ago, I saw an earlier movie by this director that was awesome. The director is Joon-ho Bong; the movie is The Host. Although the plots differ, Snowpiercer and The Host share similar themes. The Host also takes place in the future–in Seoul, where an American scientist (USA!USA!) has been dumping some type of chemical waste into the Han River, which runs through the city. Afterwards, a monster rises out of the river’s depths to attack people. (There’s the environmental theme.). At the center of the film is a destitute family who runs a food shack by the river. The government’s treatment of this family as well as their neighbors reeks of classicism, the other theme common to both movies.
Snowpiercer will be out in limited release on June 27th (praying really hard that “limited” includes Seattle).
WHATever
(By the way, did you know that Tilda Swinton created a performance-art piece that showed at the Museum of Modern Art in New York last year? Called The Maybe, she slept in a transparent case while people circled around the box to look. Speaking of weird.)
This just in: Emily Nussbaum, esteemed New Yorker television critic, does NOT watch all of the TV shows she reviews.
I was just listening to a podcast of last week’s Ask Me Another, a quiz show on NPR; Nussbaum was the special guest. She read quotes from her reviews and the contestant had to guess the TV show she was reviewing. After reading her quote from her review of Scandal, she had the hubris to unabashedly admit not only has she never watched the show, but also she uses a friend and the friend’s friend as her sources. (The friend and friend’s friend had met on the web in a discussion of the show.) Then she laughed about the(angry) letters she would probably receive.
Popping with colorful villains, vote-rigging conspiracies, waterboarding, assassinations, montages set to R. & B. songs, and the best gay couple on television (the President’s chief of staff, Cyrus, and his husband, James, an investigative reporter), the series has become a giddy, paranoid fever dream, like “24” crossed with “The West Wing,” lit up in neon pink.
Like a lion in drag pouncing on a hyena laughing at his pink neon dress, pretension trumps sincerity at The New Yorker.
I am feeling very vulnerable because this post comprises my own reviews of the nine movies I saw at the Seattle International Film Fest (SIFF), which ended last weekend. I am anxious that I will fall prey to this reviewer of reviews.
Now that I am on the other side of the fence, I realize how heavy a critic’s burden is. It kills me to shield my analysis of these movies from you because they are quite brilliant. But I can’t share them without spoilers.
This is an American film that dramatizes racism on a college campus. It pits a white frat against a black frat. Most of it is from the perspective of a shy black student on the school newspaper. The movie culminates in a racist frat party (discussed in the first scene) of the ilk that is, in reality, held by frats in some colleges today. Although this film is really funny, it packs a full punch. Stay for the credits.
This Iranian film imagines a day on the job of two assassins assigned by the government to kill two intellectuals. It also focuses on a writer who has written a memoir about a failed assassination attempt on himself and 14 other intellectuals. The movie starts out slowly but quickly becomes a captivating thriller.
It was written and directed by Mohammad Rasoulof, an Iranian filmmaker who was arrested in 2009 for filming without a permit. The government sentenced him to six years in prison and forbade him from making movies for 20 years. His sentence was commuted to one year and he is currently awaiting trial. This is the second movie that he has made since his arrest–both have received critical acclaim.
In order to protect the Iranian cast and crew, Rasoulof‘s is the only name in the credits. No one knows exactly how he makes movies without being caught. Perhaps even more puzzling is that he has been able to take his movies to film festivals, where the pundits conduct interviews of him.
As explained by the Hollywood Reporter, this movie is inspired by true incidents:
The story is inspired by real events, which Rasoulof has yet to clarify, but they seem likely to be the so-called “Chain Murders” of more than 80 Iranian writers, intellectuals, political activists and ordinary citizens between 1988 and 1998. All had been critical of the Islamic Republic.
Let’s hope that Rasoulof remains safe.
Unforgiven, in various film fests (might be on the web)
A Japanese remake of Clint Eastwood’s 1992 film of the same name, this film stars Ken Watanabe (Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon), who plays a notorious insurgent in 19th Century Japan in a revolution that has failed. The movie begins years after the revolution; Watanabe’s character has become a farmer with two small children. He had promised his late wife that he would never revert back to the ruthless killer he once was. But he is in the middle of a drought and has become destitute. Along comes an old comrade asking him to help kill two men with a hefty bounty on their heads.
The setting is reminiscent of that of the American Western. Foregrounds include plains and forests, backgrounds towering, jagged mountains. The acting is fantastic—Ken Watanabe always delivers. I love Westerns and this movie is intriguing, but it is also chock full of gore.
Fun Twist: American Westerns are based on the Japanese-Samurai-movie genre, but this Japanese movie is of the American Western genre.
Already the critics’ darling, this film is about a stand-up comic (Jenny Slate) who becomes pregnant after a one-night stand. It’s funny, quirky and different. It focuses on the interaction between the comic and the guy; it is not about her decision. Number one on Entertainment Weekly’s “Must See” list this week.
review by Chris Nashawaty, EW.com, as re-blogged by CNN.com
Spoilers: there are spoilers, but they didn’t bother me for some reason. Kind of the same old thing, nuclear style.
uh-oh!
Plot: ”MUTOs” (massive unidentified terrestrial organisms) that are “a male and female duo of giant, Giger-esque creatures with sleek pincer jaws that resemble humongous staple removers.” Tne MUTO’s “care about two things: feeding on the radiation that created them and mating with each other….” Godzilla must detroy them.
The Lowdown: Meh. It has some cool moments, but it is disjointed. Movie focuses on the three creatures, not so much the actors.
Commentary:
I didn’t know Godzilla is good, but maybe this is an aberration from the earlier movies?
Love this quote in the review: “…Ken Watanabe and Sally Hawkins are a pair of exposition-spouting scientists trying to keep straight faces while talking about electromagnetic pulses and mankind’s hubris.”
Do not love this one: “And the thrill of the film is getting the chance to fetishize their sheer size [Godzilla and enemies] and physicality as they rip through power lines and demolish buildings with their lashing tails.”
Fetish/Fetishize, as defined by dictionary.com: “anyobject,idea,etc.,elicitingunquestioningreverence,respect,ordevotion:tomakeafetishofhigh grades.” Godzilla’s too gross for a fetish, but he does have a noble mission. This must be a very personal statement because Nashawaty admits that he has loved monster movies since he was a kid.
Go see Million Dollar Arm, then tweet, text, email about how good it is–tell everyone you talk to that it’s terrific; post accolades on Facebook, forums and any other places you can think of.
I don’t care what you think of the movie. Do it and you’ll see my bestie Jon Hamm in more starring roles.Yes, I am that good of a friend. I love him in the most platonic sense of the word.
Based on a true story, this movie is about JB Bernstein (Hamm), a sports agent who creates a reality TV show based in India and the US called Million Dollar Arms. It has something to do with a competition in India for the best thrower so that they can try out for a major league baseball team in the US.
Critical consensus it is a total formulaic uplifting sports-underdog movie, complete with the girl next door (Lake Bell), the best friend (Aasif Mandvi) and dancing. (Not sure if that last one is true, but all feel-goods have dancing.)
The most important critical consensus is that It is still entertaining
(but would have been better had it focused on the two Indian ball players, not on the agent. Take this with a grain of salt! As a review critic, I feel ethically obligated to include this.)
I am somewhat comforted by Mark Hughes’ review on Forbes.com because he thinks the movie will draw in viewers to make a nice profit because ultimately it is a good movie.
Hughes gives the kind of rare insight that is fascinating: He calls the movie “an allegory about the film itself.”
He explains:
Disney is taking a common film genre and style, and adding Indian characters and locales in the sly assumption this will help increase the film’s marketability in India and overseas markets in general.
I hope you’re not as dense as I am! My head is spinning! I guess he’s saying that Bernstein did the same as Disney, except with a common TV format.
Is that really SLY?
Were the people behind Slumdog Millionare sly for placing Indian characters in a film about an American TV show that airs in many other countries (in their own versions)?
Good thing it didn’t take place in some obscure* poor country in Africa.
*jk
I know this might be picayune, even catty. But I have my friend’s back.
Although this started off the review, coupled with a brief opinion, it didn’t stop there. It continued on to give a dense retelling of what looks like every moment in the movie. I was able to skim over it. The last paragraph seemed safe because it reiterated his opinion of the movie and its potential profitability, but then BAM! The last sentence was a spoiler of the worst kind. It was a metaphor for the movie. Don’t ask how because that is a spoiler.
And here I was happy to find a review with a different perspective.
Review by By Jay Stone, Postmedia News, May 8, 2014
Seth Rogan hasn’t aged a day
Full Disclosure: I have no idea what Canada.com nor Postmedia are.
Spoilers: chock full of them. I read the first half-sentence of each paragraph and barely made off without heavy spoilage. Luckily the opinion is in the first paragraph.
Synopsis: Neighbors [is] an updated version of Aminal House. Seth Rogen, Rose Byrne star as young parents at odds with Zac Efron. (Efron is president of the über-rowdy fraternity next door].
The Takeaway: The humour comes and goes, but what you can’t deny is the energy with which everyone involved has abandoned all notions of taste.
Extras: It’s got Judd Apatow all over it: writers are from 40 Year Old Virgin (Andrew J. Cohen and Brendan O’Brien), director from Forgetting Sarah Marshall (Nicholas Stoller).
“Words by Ryan Grice” (I’m assuming he’s the film critic.), May 7, 2014
I’m just a gigolo, everywhere I go, people know the part that I’m playing….
Spoilers: Very few. (Go Kiwis!)
Synopsis: It asks that age-old question: What happens when an old Jewish man becomes a pimp?
The Takeaway: Two leading men (Tutorro and Woody) are “superb… with a chemistry and banter set to rival that of any comedic pair in cinema history.” Grice can’t say the same for the ladies, Sofia Vergara and Sharon Stone. The movie could be more in-depth and the humour could be more “drawn out,” but all in all, “it’s still an excellent outing.”
Extras: It seems unfortunate when films of this calibre don’t receive wide acknowledgement, but the dedicated will undoubtedly seek it out and their efforts will be rewarded. Nice Kiwi wording by Mr. Grice. (and the spelling is divine!)
Spoilers: This nice short review has harmless spoilers. There’s a loose synopsis that is rather obvious, esp since it is true! It’s a documentary, but this review does not do the American thang–giving so much detail that there is nothing left to learn.
Synopsis: This is an underdog story. In 2001, American Samoa suffered International football’s worst defeat, losing 31-0 to Australia. (Football is soccer in the US). They were the worst of the worst and continue to experience bad fortune (the Tsunani). But the team moves on.
The Takeway: Great story, great footage, great film.
Extras: Seattle Sounders player Thomas Rongen is in the doc because he played on American Samoas’ football team in 2011. (Shout out to my fave children’s book author.)
On Facebook, my friend Jess put up a link to salon.com’s movie review of Noah. I had to check it out because the title is so funny: “Noah”: Aronofsky’s deranged biblical action flick– Stone giants, battle scenes, a satanic antihero and Russell Crowe’s vegan cult leader — Aronofsky’s nutso “Noah” And what did I discover? WARNING NO SPOILERS! Not a one. The review is short–but it manages to give insights about movies, fun facts and an intelligent review, sans pretension. I think you should read it. (BTW, you might think that unless someone grew up in a hole, there are no spoilers to be had in this story. But there are, don’t worry. From an awkward interview of Hermoine on David Letterman, I learned about how Aronofsky stretched two pages of the Bible into a two-hour cinema extravaganza, how he envisioned the story, added characters, etc. etc.) Here’s my review of this review, by Andrew O’Hehir. Spoilers: none
Oy, that hair
Bottom Line: this movie sucks, but see it just to appreciate the spectacle of it. Here’s how he put that bottom line– Amid the CGI elephants, the Nick Nolte stone giants, the overacting and dialogue howlers, the WTF science-fiction flights of fancy and the attempt to wrest a dramatic plot out of a bare-bones mythological narrative, there’s considerable daring, fire and passion in this tale of watery apocalypse.Extras: Christian Bale is going to play Moses in a movie directed by Ridley Scott. And for you lexicon buffs: there are antediluvian values, that doesn’t mean just old fashioned values. It means values from before the flood. (You probably already knew that. I am running to catch up.) For some reason I think of thedailybeast.com as an anagram of salon.com. They don’t do movie reviews, but I found an interview of the cinemetagrapher of Noah, who has worked with Aronofsky for years. Here’s the title and subtitle:
‘Noah’ is a Global Warming Epic About the Battle Between Religion and Science, Says Cinematographer.
Darren Aronofsky’s longtime DP, Oscar nominee Matthew Libatique—who also shot Iron Man and Iron Man 2—says the Biblical epic offers a stern warning about climate change.
In this year of hurricanes, winter storms, earth quakes and tsunamis, is Noah going rogue?
According to Libatique, the film’s environmental message is in an “allegory.” The antediluvian devils in the movie do not respect their world enough to make sure that it lasted. Today we are in danger of losing our world due to our carelessness. Somewhere in there, Libatique talks about the ole’ science vs. religion debate.
Extra: Did you know that cinematographer and director of photography (DP) are used interchangeably?
Here are some more interesting tidbits:
Noah has been banned in Pakistan, Bahrain, Qatar, U.A.E., and Indonesia, for allegedly contradicting the teachings of Islam.
Pope Francis reportedly gave the film the Vatican’s blessing after a brief tête-à-tête with the film’s burly star, Russell Crowe.
It’s a marketing blitz! Divergent is everywhere. You can’t avoid it. But billboards, magazine articles, collectible Divergent magazine issues (People), previews, TV ads, handsome romantic interests—do not a blockbuster guarantee—sometimes not even close to it. (As in Anchor Man 2. Replace “handsome male lead” with “beloved Will Ferrell.”), although teens may flock to this movie regardless.
Divergent, however, is getting mixed reviews. Here are three samples–
1. WE’VE GOT A WINNER!!! She’s Lisa Parkin, Huffington Post’s Young Adult (YA) literature expert. CHECK OUT THE TITLE OF THE REVIEW in the Huffington Post:
Divergent Movie Review: Readers Will Love It (Spoiler Free)
Parkin comes from the perspective of a book reviewer and she loved the book. Towards the beginning of the review, she says that she does not want “to spoil anything for Divergent newcomers,” and so she will not “share more details for other book fans on [her] young adult book review site, Read.Breathe.Relax.“
As a YA novel expert, she reviews this movie in two ways: a movie in itself and a book adaptation. She does this “for the mental sanity of any hardcore book fans….” I like that. Here is a summary of her review of each aspect–
Divergent as a Movie: Good cinematography: future Chicago, city of dystopia
Good casting: Shailene Woodley really embodies the spirit of Tris [main character], the young girl who’s trying to make the biggest decision of her life and is thrown some serious complications.
Plus, Theo James as Four [romantic interest] was just brilliant. He simply IS Four, and manages to capture the tough exterior of the character while showing that Four does in fact have a softer side.
He’s all that.
(it’s true!).
Divergent as a Book Adaptation She repeats my dream words:
Again, to avoid spoilers I won’t go into much detail here.
Her favorite parts of the book were all in the movie.
So the reviews in this post all mention Theo James’ good looks. Parkins doesn’t say it straight out as do the other two criticis–but she does say that she was too busy “fawning over Four” tocare about the movie’s faithfulness to the book.
Takeaway: She loves it. Couldn’t love it more. Just loves it. Really. Loves. It.
Extras: Parkin’s analysis of the theme–
It’s about family and choices and wanting to feel like you belong. It’s about community and our innate fear of being alone. And most importantly, it’s about fighting what’s expected to be who you really are.
2. With an anticipatory eye roll, I moved on to Owen Gleiberman’s review on entertainmentweekly.com
Spoilers: if you haven’t read the book, but wish you had before seeing the movie, no worries, Owen Gleiberman’s got your back! He gives the whole shebang away.
The Takeaway: B+
Extras: Gleiberman believes that both female and male leads bring incredible artistry to their acting–
Hair down, new tight outfit and this demure suburban housewife wife goes bad-ass
Shailene Woodley (Tris) Woodley, through the delicate power of her acting, does something compelling: She shows you what a prickly, fearful, yet daring personality looks like when it’s nestled deep within the kind of modest, bookish girl who shouldn’t even like gym class.
That sure is compelling–and unique. Just ask those who have done s0 before her: Gwyneth Paltrow, Uma Thurman, Sandra Bullock, Angelina Jolie–been there done that.
As for Kris’ love interest, Four–
It helps that the drill sergeant, named Four, is played by Theo James, who’s like an unflaky James Franco with a surly hint of T-shirt-era Brando; he brings off the neat trick of playing a hardass who is also a heartthrob.
That is a neat trick. Don’t you think? So hard to do. Just ask John Wayne and Humphrey Bogart. Or if you like ’em live, Matt Damon, Robert Deniro (when he was younger), Tom Cruise and Liam Neesam.
Hard-ass heartthrob
But I have a greater objection: Mr. Gleiberman, Theo James is no James Franco.
3. Here’s a fun review from thewrap.com (What is thewrap.com anyway? The US Weekly of the internet? I can’t tell. Its critic, Alonso Duralde, has impressive creds)
Takeaway, the long version: the title says it all–
Divergent’ Review: A Little ‘Hunger Games,’ a Little ‘Harry Potter,’ a Lot of Dull
Spoilers: They’re there all right, but easy to skip.
Takeaway, the blunt version: don’t bother going.
The format of the review is discombobulating. A bit of it is on the left. See the red line of text between the paragraphs? They look like subtitles, right?
They’re not. They are promotions for other Divergent -related stuff on their website–videos, photographs and articles. They all start with “See video:” or “Also read:” or “See photos:” It’s incredibly distracting. These tacky interruptions are demeaning to Duralde, especially because it makes his clear, interesting prose hard to follow.
Extras: He too refers to Theo James‘ attractiveness–he says that James is “handsome but stiff.”
I like the subtitle:
This Frankenstein of stitched-together YA parts never stands on its own two feet, even with Kate Winslet giving full-on Faye Dunaway.
In the first two paragraphs is an interesting discussion about the fact that the creations of stories build inevitably upon past stories, but it is in the story’s telling–its innovation–that makes it good. That is how Divergent diverges from great storytelling, he believes. He talks about Romeo and Juliet borrowing “heavily” from Ovid’s Pyramus and Thisbe. It never occurred to me that Shakespeare was ripping off another work. I thought that every story was invented by Shakespeare and there’s been nothing original every since. (Elizabethan urban myth?)
PS. Theo James is one of those actors who is really good looking if there are no contenders in sight, a là Matthew Bomer.
Rant: why mention that Theo James is handsome in the first place? It’s not like he became handsome for the role. It’s not like Matthew McConaughey and Jared Leto losing a gazillion pounds for their roles. Did the reviews of the first Toby McGuire Spiderman mention that James Franco is good looking? And isnt’ beauty in the eyes of the beholder? Let the audience decide whether he’s handsome or not. They’re going to anyway.
Is it because Theo James is not a good actor but has one thing going for him (his looks)?
Spoilers Skimmable: yes. There were very, very few!
WARNING: NO SPOILERS! Reviews of movie reviews 