I didn't catch last year's The Hunger Games in movie theaters. I suppose I was just too busy, though later that year I caught it on DVD and was reasonably entertained. I've always been a fan of dystopian, post apocalyptic fiction and this movie put a bit of new, if slightly disturbing, twist on the concept. It wasn't among my favorites of last year, but I was definitely entertained, so much so that I was more than willing to see the sequel in the movie theater. As much as I enjoyed the first one, the follow-up was head and shoulders the superior film.
The events of the story directly follow those of the first film, so knowledge of what came before is a must. Having won the 74th Hunger Games, Katniss Everdeen (Jennifer Lawrence) and Peeta Mellark (Josh Hutcherson) have moved into the "Victor's Village" of District 12, and into relatively opulent houses. They're celebrities for life now, thanks not only to their victory but their sham "love story," something which irks Katniss' close friend Gale (Liam Hemsworth) who is not entirely convinced it was a sham. Katniss has bigger problems, though, as her and Peeta's unique victory, as well as her widely televised act of sympathy for fallen tribute Rue, has sparked uprisings all throughout Panem, to the extent that the despotic President Snow (Donald Sutherland) pays her a visit and basically threatens to kill her family and everyone she loves if she doesn't play ball and use her newly-won influence to tell everyone how wonderful the Capitol is. Key to selling this fiction is also selling her fake love story with Peeta...for the rest of her life. The uprisings, however, prove extremely difficult to suppress, and eventually Snow decides to recruit Katniss and Peeta into a "special edition" Hunger Games known as the "Quarter Quell" which only takes place once every 25 years. This time, every one of their opponents is a past winner of the games, and with a ruthless new game master Plutarch Heavensbee (Philip Seymour Hoffman), frightening times lie ahead for Katniss and Peeta.
I have not read any of Suzanne Collins' bestselling Hunger Games books, and at this point that's deliberate; I want whatever surprises the films have to throw at me to remain surprises. What I appreciate most about the movies is how they serve as a graphic metaphor for class inequality, and considering that this was intended for American readers, many if not most of whom probably can't find any country other than their own a world map, the message these films convey remains quite relevant, if a little heavy-handed at times. I have no idea how the books read but for the most part the script by Michael Arndt (Toy Story 3) and Simon Beaufoy (Slumdog Millionaire) exudes an intelligence which does justice to the book's underlying themes even as it keeps things easy to understand for younger viewers.
Of course, the material would still feel a little schlocky in some places were it not for the utter conviction of the performers, particularly Jennifer Lawrence in her role as Katniss, who does an amazing job at conveying her character's range of emotions from fear to inner conflict. Most of the key supporting players from the first film, including Woody Harrelson, Elizabeth Banks and Lenny Kravitz are back, and this time they are joined by several welcome new additions like Hoffman, Jeffrey Wright, Amanda Plummer and Sam Claflin as former HG winners Beetee, Wiress and Finnick, to name a few. Of course, the problem with a cast this big is that not everyone will get the character development they arguably deserve, even with a two-and-a-half hour running time.
To director Francis Lawrence's credit, though, he manages to balance the most crucial of the characters and story elements while at the same time elevating the production value of this sequel well past its predecessor. Granted, the budget from the last film was basically doubled, but every last penny of that $140 million was well spent, from the computer-generated threats the tributes faced in the arena to the sets, to the hovercraft that actually showed up on screen this time. The first film told a good story, but the penny-pinching was quite evident, especially in the last few scenes in which laughably fake computer-generated wolves showed up. This time the producers went all-out. One thing that really struck me was the imposing architecture of the Capitol, which was embarrassingly minimalist in the first film. This film is bigger and better in every way than its predecessor, and from the look of things, audiences around the world think so too.
It wasn't flawless storytelling, though. I can point to one scene that really made me cringe: Katniss and Peeta are attending a party in the Capitol, when one of the guests invites Peeta to try some French macaroons. Peeta declares that he's too full to eat anymore, and the guest offers him a drink which is meant to make him vomit so that he can eat some more. This scene is considerably powerful given that, at this point in the story, the audience knows that people all over Panem are starving. Peeta blunts the impact of this obscenity by actually saying that people in the Districts are starving while people in the Capitol are throwing up their food. The writers either forgot the "show, don't tell rule" or figured the audience would be too slow to get the message without spelling it out in neon lights as bright as the wigs worn by Elizabeth Banks' Effie.
This little quibble notwithstanding this was easily one of the most engaging movies I've seen all year, and I find myself looking forward to the next installment in the saga of Panem.
4/5
Friday, November 29, 2013
Saturday, November 2, 2013
"Dark" but No Less Fun: A Review of Thor: The Dark World
While I enjoyed 2011's Thor, there was something that felt somehow off about it to me. The fact that so much of an action fantasy was set in the relatively mundane New Mexico, the fact that the titular superhero spent most of the movie out of costume and without any superpowers, and finally, the fact that this was Marvel Studios' first action/fantasy hybrid after three straight sci-fi flavored movies (two Iron Man films and one Hulk film) gave the first movie a strangely half-baked feel for me.
Not so, however the sequel, titled Thor: The Dark World.
Like the first film, this film begins with a prologue set in ancient times, so ancient that they actually predate Odin Allfather (Anthony Hopkins) himself. In fact, it falls upon Odin's father Bor (Tony Curran) to stop the menace of the Dark Elves of Svartalfheim, led by Malekith (Christopher Eccleston) and his loyal lieutenant Algrim (Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje). The Dark Elves lived in the darkness that thrived before the universe was born, and through their indestructible energy weapon, the Aether, they seek to destroy the universe and restore the darkness that once reigned, but Bor defeats them and hides the Aether. Malekith sacrifices the bulk of his armies and in the chaos flees, going into hiding, and apparently suspended animation, for thousands of years.
The film then shifts to the present, which happens to be two years after the first Thor film, and one year after Marvel's The Avengers. Loki (Tom Hiddleston) is imprisoned for his crimes on earth, and Thor (Chris Hemsworth) and his companions, the Warriors Three (Volstagg - Ray Stevenson, Fandrall - Zachary Levi, Hogun - Tadanobu Asane) and Sif (Jamie Alexander), are dispatched across the nine realms to bring peace to these troubled worlds. Meanwhile, on Earth, astrophysicist Jane Foster (Natalie Portman) the object of Thor's affection, is trying to move on from Thor. She has moved to London and is actually on a date with an amiable local (Chris O' Dowd), when her assistant, Darcy Lewis (Kat Dennings) interrupts her date and calls her attention to an anomaly in the space-time continuum. Jane follows Darcy to the site of the disturbance, which turns out to be several portals between worlds, one brought about by a celestial event called the convergence, which only occurs once in several thousand years, and in which all nine realms align perfectly. Quite by accident, Jane stumbles on the place where the Asgardians hid the Aether, and the energy actually enters her body, with sometimes explosive consequences for those who try to touch her after that.
Eventually, Thor finds his way to Jane, and whisks her off to Asgard on the now-repaired Bifrost, thinking it would be the best place to keep her safe from the deadly energy inside her. Unfortunately, the Aether awakens Malekith and the remainder of his Dark Elves, and they attack an unsuspecting Asgard with catastrophic consequences.
Thor realizes the magnitude of the threat faced not only by Asgard but by all the Nine Realms, one that will require more than just the power of Mjolnir to vanquish. In fact, he comes to realize that he may require help from one of the most unexpected of places.
Like the first film, this one takes place both on Earth and on other, fantastical realms, but this time around it's the other worlds that get the lion's share of screen time, with Asgard and Svartalfheim proving pivotal to the plot, and another world, Vanaheim, serving as the staging point for the film's first kick-ass action sequence. In this respect, the second film definitely steps things up several notches from its predecessor; not only are there more action set pieces here in comparison to the first film, but they are noticeably better choreographed and more elaborate. They are also abetted by much better computer-generated imagery than the first film had to offer.
Not only that, but there's also a bit more urgency in the battles here; the death of a pivotal supporting character midway through the film tells the audience that this time, the menace is real. In that sense, the film does live up to its title in a way, though the titular "dark world" refers to the home of the Dark Elves and not really to a significant shift in tone from the first film to this one.
That's actually a good thing; Marvel has, for the most part, kept what worked very well for the first film, and for most of Marvel's films in general: the humor. This time, they don't get by on fish-out-of-the-water jokes, but instead pepper the script with more witty exchanges in general between the characters. Hiddleston's Loki, of course, gets the best lines. It was, to me, impressive that Marvel was able to keep this crucial element in despite a nastier set of bad guys than the last film had. Also, director Alan Taylor (who takes over the director's chair from Kenneth Branagh) and his screenwriters make it a point to preserve the other things that worked about the first movie as well, such as the chemistry between lead actor Hemsworth and the various other actors in the film, like Portman, Hopkins, and Hiddleston. Of the performers here, Hopkins feels a little less enthusiastic than he was the first time around, but it doesn't hurt the storytelling that much. A bit of bonus is the fact that for the first time, Portman's Foster gets to interact with the Asgardians, including Odin, Frigga (Rene Russo) and of course Loki.
Of the new elements in the film, Ecclestone's Malekith feels like the least impressive, though really, buried under all that makeup and without particularly memorable dialogue, I'm hard-pressed to think of what more he could have done. Also, personally I felt a little strange seeing swords and battle axes mixing it up with laser cannons on the screen, though considering that George Lucas created a whole genre out of such strange marriages with his Star Wars films I suppose this isn't the first time two seemingly disparate narrative styles have melded on the big screen. In any case, it was only in the first few fight scenes that I thought it looked particularly strange. This little quibble notwithstanding, the major battles were still quite impressive on the whole.
Speaking of climactic battles, this film has one of the most imaginative ones I've seen in a while, one that effectively mixes humor and thrills. It's the sort of thing that has to be seen to be best appreciated.
As with all Marvel films, there were treats to be had after the film, with mid-credits AND post-credits Easter Eggs. I'm pretty sure it's not really spoiling anything to say that at least one of them is clearly setting up a future Marvel Studios blockbuster. Personally, I wasn't particularly enthused about it, even though I'm sure comic-book nerds everywhere were ecstatic about its implications.
But really, my unhappiness with future teasers and some niggles in the script notwithstanding, Thor: The Dark World was definitely worth the trip to the movie theater, though this time, I didn't bother with the 3-D premium considering I wasn't particularly impressed with the 3-D conversions of The Avengers or Iron Man 3.
3.5/5
Not so, however the sequel, titled Thor: The Dark World.
Like the first film, this film begins with a prologue set in ancient times, so ancient that they actually predate Odin Allfather (Anthony Hopkins) himself. In fact, it falls upon Odin's father Bor (Tony Curran) to stop the menace of the Dark Elves of Svartalfheim, led by Malekith (Christopher Eccleston) and his loyal lieutenant Algrim (Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje). The Dark Elves lived in the darkness that thrived before the universe was born, and through their indestructible energy weapon, the Aether, they seek to destroy the universe and restore the darkness that once reigned, but Bor defeats them and hides the Aether. Malekith sacrifices the bulk of his armies and in the chaos flees, going into hiding, and apparently suspended animation, for thousands of years.
The film then shifts to the present, which happens to be two years after the first Thor film, and one year after Marvel's The Avengers. Loki (Tom Hiddleston) is imprisoned for his crimes on earth, and Thor (Chris Hemsworth) and his companions, the Warriors Three (Volstagg - Ray Stevenson, Fandrall - Zachary Levi, Hogun - Tadanobu Asane) and Sif (Jamie Alexander), are dispatched across the nine realms to bring peace to these troubled worlds. Meanwhile, on Earth, astrophysicist Jane Foster (Natalie Portman) the object of Thor's affection, is trying to move on from Thor. She has moved to London and is actually on a date with an amiable local (Chris O' Dowd), when her assistant, Darcy Lewis (Kat Dennings) interrupts her date and calls her attention to an anomaly in the space-time continuum. Jane follows Darcy to the site of the disturbance, which turns out to be several portals between worlds, one brought about by a celestial event called the convergence, which only occurs once in several thousand years, and in which all nine realms align perfectly. Quite by accident, Jane stumbles on the place where the Asgardians hid the Aether, and the energy actually enters her body, with sometimes explosive consequences for those who try to touch her after that.
Eventually, Thor finds his way to Jane, and whisks her off to Asgard on the now-repaired Bifrost, thinking it would be the best place to keep her safe from the deadly energy inside her. Unfortunately, the Aether awakens Malekith and the remainder of his Dark Elves, and they attack an unsuspecting Asgard with catastrophic consequences.
Thor realizes the magnitude of the threat faced not only by Asgard but by all the Nine Realms, one that will require more than just the power of Mjolnir to vanquish. In fact, he comes to realize that he may require help from one of the most unexpected of places.
Like the first film, this one takes place both on Earth and on other, fantastical realms, but this time around it's the other worlds that get the lion's share of screen time, with Asgard and Svartalfheim proving pivotal to the plot, and another world, Vanaheim, serving as the staging point for the film's first kick-ass action sequence. In this respect, the second film definitely steps things up several notches from its predecessor; not only are there more action set pieces here in comparison to the first film, but they are noticeably better choreographed and more elaborate. They are also abetted by much better computer-generated imagery than the first film had to offer.
Not only that, but there's also a bit more urgency in the battles here; the death of a pivotal supporting character midway through the film tells the audience that this time, the menace is real. In that sense, the film does live up to its title in a way, though the titular "dark world" refers to the home of the Dark Elves and not really to a significant shift in tone from the first film to this one.
That's actually a good thing; Marvel has, for the most part, kept what worked very well for the first film, and for most of Marvel's films in general: the humor. This time, they don't get by on fish-out-of-the-water jokes, but instead pepper the script with more witty exchanges in general between the characters. Hiddleston's Loki, of course, gets the best lines. It was, to me, impressive that Marvel was able to keep this crucial element in despite a nastier set of bad guys than the last film had. Also, director Alan Taylor (who takes over the director's chair from Kenneth Branagh) and his screenwriters make it a point to preserve the other things that worked about the first movie as well, such as the chemistry between lead actor Hemsworth and the various other actors in the film, like Portman, Hopkins, and Hiddleston. Of the performers here, Hopkins feels a little less enthusiastic than he was the first time around, but it doesn't hurt the storytelling that much. A bit of bonus is the fact that for the first time, Portman's Foster gets to interact with the Asgardians, including Odin, Frigga (Rene Russo) and of course Loki.
Of the new elements in the film, Ecclestone's Malekith feels like the least impressive, though really, buried under all that makeup and without particularly memorable dialogue, I'm hard-pressed to think of what more he could have done. Also, personally I felt a little strange seeing swords and battle axes mixing it up with laser cannons on the screen, though considering that George Lucas created a whole genre out of such strange marriages with his Star Wars films I suppose this isn't the first time two seemingly disparate narrative styles have melded on the big screen. In any case, it was only in the first few fight scenes that I thought it looked particularly strange. This little quibble notwithstanding, the major battles were still quite impressive on the whole.
Speaking of climactic battles, this film has one of the most imaginative ones I've seen in a while, one that effectively mixes humor and thrills. It's the sort of thing that has to be seen to be best appreciated.
As with all Marvel films, there were treats to be had after the film, with mid-credits AND post-credits Easter Eggs. I'm pretty sure it's not really spoiling anything to say that at least one of them is clearly setting up a future Marvel Studios blockbuster. Personally, I wasn't particularly enthused about it, even though I'm sure comic-book nerds everywhere were ecstatic about its implications.
But really, my unhappiness with future teasers and some niggles in the script notwithstanding, Thor: The Dark World was definitely worth the trip to the movie theater, though this time, I didn't bother with the 3-D premium considering I wasn't particularly impressed with the 3-D conversions of The Avengers or Iron Man 3.
3.5/5
Friday, November 1, 2013
Piracy on the High Seas, Sans Flamboyance: A Review of Captain Phillips
While the depredations of Somali pirates plying the waters just off the coast of the African continent have, in the last few years, grabbed headlines every now and then for raiding ships hauling valuable cargo to and from the area, they rarely seemed as urgent as car-bombs in urban centers or disenfranchised Arabs trying to tear down their governments, with massive carnage ensuring. Personally, as someone living in a country living with massive poverty, violence in the countrysides, and a whole host of problems, I confess I did not find these incidents particularly relevant to my daily life. Basically, and to be more crass about it, poor people with high-powered firearms hijacking cargo ships thousands of miles away felt more like a rich man's problem than anything else.
Director Paul Greengrass, whose gripping Bourne films basically sent a new standard in action-thriller filmmaking, gave viewers a much more personal perspective of a Somali pirate attack with his new film Captain Phillips, in which Tom Hanks stars as the title character, an actual mariner whose cargo ship was attacked by four Somali pirates in 2009.
There's not much more to tell by way of the plot than to say that Hanks' character, Richard Phillips, is the Captain of a cargo vessel MV Maersk Alabama, that gets hijacked in the high seas, just off the Somalian coast, by a quartet of armed Somali pirates headed by a hardened pirate named Muse (newcomer Barkhad Abdi), but as with many truly compelling films, it is all in the telling, as with the Bourne movies, Greengrass does a terrific job of building up tension, even though the ultimate outcome of the story is but a Google search away.
Hanks, acclaimed and award-winning actor that he is, excels, as expected, in the role of Phillips; he is key to drawing us into this world. More than the editing and the music and the gunfire, it is Hanks' performance that is instrumental to drawing the audience into Phillips' world, to convincing us just how terrifying his experience actually was. Sure, they could have stuck a competent actor in the role and the audience could still have recognized the peril the character was in, but Hanks really puts us in the moment, and even though he's still one of the most recognizable actors in the English speaking world, he difficult Richard Phillips' experience must have been.
Abdi, however, and his Somalian costars, are the revelation here. I suppose it was better to cast actual Somalians than to get African-American actors to go all "method" and lose what would probably have been the equivalent weight of two or three adults to play these characters; none of the pirates in the movie looks like he eats more than once every other day. A detail like this, and the opening scene in which the goons of a Somalian warlord storm into the village where Muse and his cohorts live and remind them rather forcefully that they need to make money, make it hard to hate the pirates the way one would hate a traditional Hollywood villain, which these guys are anything but. If anything, the fact that these men are basically destitute and desperate makes them even more dangerous, which is why staying away from that Google search is a particularly good idea.
This film is not exactly a thrill-ride in the vein of Gravity, but it's a highly engaging peek into recent historical events that is definitely worth a look.
5/5
Director Paul Greengrass, whose gripping Bourne films basically sent a new standard in action-thriller filmmaking, gave viewers a much more personal perspective of a Somali pirate attack with his new film Captain Phillips, in which Tom Hanks stars as the title character, an actual mariner whose cargo ship was attacked by four Somali pirates in 2009.
There's not much more to tell by way of the plot than to say that Hanks' character, Richard Phillips, is the Captain of a cargo vessel MV Maersk Alabama, that gets hijacked in the high seas, just off the Somalian coast, by a quartet of armed Somali pirates headed by a hardened pirate named Muse (newcomer Barkhad Abdi), but as with many truly compelling films, it is all in the telling, as with the Bourne movies, Greengrass does a terrific job of building up tension, even though the ultimate outcome of the story is but a Google search away.
Hanks, acclaimed and award-winning actor that he is, excels, as expected, in the role of Phillips; he is key to drawing us into this world. More than the editing and the music and the gunfire, it is Hanks' performance that is instrumental to drawing the audience into Phillips' world, to convincing us just how terrifying his experience actually was. Sure, they could have stuck a competent actor in the role and the audience could still have recognized the peril the character was in, but Hanks really puts us in the moment, and even though he's still one of the most recognizable actors in the English speaking world, he difficult Richard Phillips' experience must have been.
Abdi, however, and his Somalian costars, are the revelation here. I suppose it was better to cast actual Somalians than to get African-American actors to go all "method" and lose what would probably have been the equivalent weight of two or three adults to play these characters; none of the pirates in the movie looks like he eats more than once every other day. A detail like this, and the opening scene in which the goons of a Somalian warlord storm into the village where Muse and his cohorts live and remind them rather forcefully that they need to make money, make it hard to hate the pirates the way one would hate a traditional Hollywood villain, which these guys are anything but. If anything, the fact that these men are basically destitute and desperate makes them even more dangerous, which is why staying away from that Google search is a particularly good idea.
This film is not exactly a thrill-ride in the vein of Gravity, but it's a highly engaging peek into recent historical events that is definitely worth a look.
5/5
Saturday, October 26, 2013
Warmed-Up But Not Quite as Good: A Review of Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs 2
I wrote a review of Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs when it came out here in January 2010, four months after its release in the United States, on my now-defunct Multiply page. I felt it was fun, visually exciting, but ultimately disposable. I have enjoyed re-watching it on DVD with my kids since then, and as a result we were all looking forward to watching the sequel. We were willing to forgo watching it in 3-D to save some money, but unfortunately it was the only available format where we watched it.
The story of the sequel picks up from where the first film left off, although it retroactively negated the after-credits sequence of the first film which suggested events that followed the destruction of Swallow Falls. This film immediately begins in the aftermath of the destruction of the town, which was caused by a food hurricane generated by a machine invented by Flint Lockwood (Bill Hader) which turns water into food.
Here, Flint, his weather-reporter girlfriend Sam (Anna Faris), his dad (James Caan) and various friends are relocated from their island by a think tank known as Live Corp., run by Flint's childhood hero, super-inventor Chester V (Will Forte). Chester hires Flint to work at Live Corp., where Flint has the time of his life, not realizing that the real plan of Chester and his assistant, a talking orangutan named Barb (Kristen Schaal) is to recover his food generating machine, the Flint Lockwood Diatonic Super Mutating Dynamic Food Replicator (FLDSMDFR) while Flint is distracted. When Chester's extraction teams disappear during their attempts to find the machine, Chester decides to send the expendable Flint over to the island and find his machine. Flint brings along his dad and his friends, and what they find is not at all what they expected.
I love cartoons, whether they are hand-drawn, stop motion or computer-generated. I love their sense of whimsy, and how they basically make me feel like a kid again, especially the silly ones.
The first film had the benefit of being based on a kids' book that my children and I enjoyed, as well as the novelty of giant food falling from the sky. This novelty was always going to wear off, but to the filmmakers' credit they've expanded on an idea that was briefly explored in the first film (e.g. the flying pizzas, fighting chickens and killer gummi bears) and have introduced an entire ecosystem of creatures made of food, including a giant cheeseburger spider, shrimpanzees, tacodiles, and a whole host of outrageous looking concoctions that have come to life. Considering that so many animals are made into food it was visually engaging to see that turned around this movie. Also, as a 3-D experience this film was pretty striking. Chester V's nose poked at us every time he looked into the screen.
In terms of writing, though, the film left quite a bit to be desired. The first film was hardly a masterclass in scripting, but the second film, with its thoroughly forgettable villain who vaguely feels like a cheap shot at the late Steve Jobs (though probably more because of how he looks than anything else) and a hero who seems every bit the idiot he was in the first film, really skimps on the story and characterization here. The writing feels like it developed just enough to justify the various visual gags that punctuate the humor, and that's about it.
It was still a lot of fun for the kids, but the adults should prepare to be patient while sitting through this.
3/5
The story of the sequel picks up from where the first film left off, although it retroactively negated the after-credits sequence of the first film which suggested events that followed the destruction of Swallow Falls. This film immediately begins in the aftermath of the destruction of the town, which was caused by a food hurricane generated by a machine invented by Flint Lockwood (Bill Hader) which turns water into food.
Here, Flint, his weather-reporter girlfriend Sam (Anna Faris), his dad (James Caan) and various friends are relocated from their island by a think tank known as Live Corp., run by Flint's childhood hero, super-inventor Chester V (Will Forte). Chester hires Flint to work at Live Corp., where Flint has the time of his life, not realizing that the real plan of Chester and his assistant, a talking orangutan named Barb (Kristen Schaal) is to recover his food generating machine, the Flint Lockwood Diatonic Super Mutating Dynamic Food Replicator (FLDSMDFR) while Flint is distracted. When Chester's extraction teams disappear during their attempts to find the machine, Chester decides to send the expendable Flint over to the island and find his machine. Flint brings along his dad and his friends, and what they find is not at all what they expected.
I love cartoons, whether they are hand-drawn, stop motion or computer-generated. I love their sense of whimsy, and how they basically make me feel like a kid again, especially the silly ones.
The first film had the benefit of being based on a kids' book that my children and I enjoyed, as well as the novelty of giant food falling from the sky. This novelty was always going to wear off, but to the filmmakers' credit they've expanded on an idea that was briefly explored in the first film (e.g. the flying pizzas, fighting chickens and killer gummi bears) and have introduced an entire ecosystem of creatures made of food, including a giant cheeseburger spider, shrimpanzees, tacodiles, and a whole host of outrageous looking concoctions that have come to life. Considering that so many animals are made into food it was visually engaging to see that turned around this movie. Also, as a 3-D experience this film was pretty striking. Chester V's nose poked at us every time he looked into the screen.
In terms of writing, though, the film left quite a bit to be desired. The first film was hardly a masterclass in scripting, but the second film, with its thoroughly forgettable villain who vaguely feels like a cheap shot at the late Steve Jobs (though probably more because of how he looks than anything else) and a hero who seems every bit the idiot he was in the first film, really skimps on the story and characterization here. The writing feels like it developed just enough to justify the various visual gags that punctuate the humor, and that's about it.
It was still a lot of fun for the kids, but the adults should prepare to be patient while sitting through this.
3/5
Tuesday, October 22, 2013
Plummeting to One's Death...In 3-D! A Review of Gravity
In the three weeks since its release, critics and audiences the world over have apparently embraced director Alfonso Cuaron's 90-minute thriller Gravity, starring Sandra Bullock and George Clooney as astronauts in extreme peril. I saw the film myself over two weekends ago but have had little time to churn out a review.
The story is simple; a group of astronauts including Dr. Ryan Stone (Bullock) and Lt. Matt Kowalski (Clooney), and a number of actors who basically just lend their voices, are on a mission in space installing new hardware on a satellite when they are struck by the falling debris of a Russian satellite that has been destroyed as part of Russia's efforts to clean the skies of its derelict satellites. Chaos and death ensue, and before they know it Stone and Clooney find themselves falling to earth and basically scrambling around for other satellites to board in order to ensure that they can survive their return to earth. They have the benefit of Kowalski's jet pack but not for very long.
I admit that I was not altogether impressed by the trailer. It appeared to be a cast of two people in peril, and I asked myself, right off the bat, how long the filmmakers could possibly sustain such a thin premise?
I will also readily admit that the answer I got to that question was: for 90 nail-biting minutes.
Full credit goes to Cuaron, Bullock, Clooney, the amazing team of visual effects artists, and composer Steven Price for managing to squeeze so much action and tension out of what was basically a reed-thin plot.
It's been a full twenty years and one Academy Award since Bullock played Sylvester Stallone's sidekick in Demolition Man, and apart from looking great for someone pushing fifty, she has really shown some serious acting chops in this film, especially considering that she and Clooney are the only actors who actually appear onscreen. I think it's fair to say that she basically carries this film (with all due respect to Clooney). Consider this Sandra Bullock's Cast Away (the 2000 Robert Zemeckis movie which, for the most part, starred Tom Hanks and a volleyball).
To my mind, the crew, especially the visual effects people and the aforementioned composer, deserve special mention, for creating an utterly believable space environment, no mean feat considering that most of the film's 90 minutes takes place in space, thus creating the very real possibility of the seams in the digital effects showing at one point or another. They never do, at least no as far as I can see. Also, unlike most blockbusters in which the visual effects are needed mainly to prop up the massive action set pieces, this film relies on sterling effects to carry the story, and the crew are up to the task.
It may seem strange that the composer gets such special mention, but there's a reason for it; this is one of the rare Hollywood films (and off the top of my head, I cannot think of any other) in which the filmmakers actually depicted the fact in space, there's no sound. There's no crashing sound as the debris hammers the space shuttle, no exploding sound as one satellite or another disintegrates upon impact with hurtling satellite fragments. Basically, it's all up to composer Price to replace all of the tension that explosions and crashes usually creates, and he does a sterling job.
It's also worth mentioning that this is the best IMAX 3-D experience I've had since Avatar. Granted, it's only the third IMAX 3-D movie I've seen since then (the other two being The Amazing Spider-Man and The Adventures of Tintin), but unlike either of those two, it made the absolute most of the format, just like James Cameron's visual feast.
I've already kind of hopped on the bandwagon of people impressed by this movie, but I will stop short of calling it a masterpiece, as technically impressive as it is. There's something oddly perfunctory about the writing; Stone's back story, which she discusses during the film, feels like an afterthought, which matters, considering that the audience is supposed to care whether these characters live or die. Kowalski's story, apart from one humorous anecdote he repeats throughout the film, is just about nonexistent. It is fortunate that the actors make up for the script's shortcomings with utter conviction in their performances, especially considering that they were probably acting against green screens most of the time.
My favorite astronauts-in-peril movie remains Ron Howard's Apollo 13, but for sheer urgency and visual effects splendor, Gravity has set a new standard. Kudos to everyone involved.
4.5/5
The story is simple; a group of astronauts including Dr. Ryan Stone (Bullock) and Lt. Matt Kowalski (Clooney), and a number of actors who basically just lend their voices, are on a mission in space installing new hardware on a satellite when they are struck by the falling debris of a Russian satellite that has been destroyed as part of Russia's efforts to clean the skies of its derelict satellites. Chaos and death ensue, and before they know it Stone and Clooney find themselves falling to earth and basically scrambling around for other satellites to board in order to ensure that they can survive their return to earth. They have the benefit of Kowalski's jet pack but not for very long.
I admit that I was not altogether impressed by the trailer. It appeared to be a cast of two people in peril, and I asked myself, right off the bat, how long the filmmakers could possibly sustain such a thin premise?
I will also readily admit that the answer I got to that question was: for 90 nail-biting minutes.
Full credit goes to Cuaron, Bullock, Clooney, the amazing team of visual effects artists, and composer Steven Price for managing to squeeze so much action and tension out of what was basically a reed-thin plot.
It's been a full twenty years and one Academy Award since Bullock played Sylvester Stallone's sidekick in Demolition Man, and apart from looking great for someone pushing fifty, she has really shown some serious acting chops in this film, especially considering that she and Clooney are the only actors who actually appear onscreen. I think it's fair to say that she basically carries this film (with all due respect to Clooney). Consider this Sandra Bullock's Cast Away (the 2000 Robert Zemeckis movie which, for the most part, starred Tom Hanks and a volleyball).
To my mind, the crew, especially the visual effects people and the aforementioned composer, deserve special mention, for creating an utterly believable space environment, no mean feat considering that most of the film's 90 minutes takes place in space, thus creating the very real possibility of the seams in the digital effects showing at one point or another. They never do, at least no as far as I can see. Also, unlike most blockbusters in which the visual effects are needed mainly to prop up the massive action set pieces, this film relies on sterling effects to carry the story, and the crew are up to the task.
It may seem strange that the composer gets such special mention, but there's a reason for it; this is one of the rare Hollywood films (and off the top of my head, I cannot think of any other) in which the filmmakers actually depicted the fact in space, there's no sound. There's no crashing sound as the debris hammers the space shuttle, no exploding sound as one satellite or another disintegrates upon impact with hurtling satellite fragments. Basically, it's all up to composer Price to replace all of the tension that explosions and crashes usually creates, and he does a sterling job.
It's also worth mentioning that this is the best IMAX 3-D experience I've had since Avatar. Granted, it's only the third IMAX 3-D movie I've seen since then (the other two being The Amazing Spider-Man and The Adventures of Tintin), but unlike either of those two, it made the absolute most of the format, just like James Cameron's visual feast.
I've already kind of hopped on the bandwagon of people impressed by this movie, but I will stop short of calling it a masterpiece, as technically impressive as it is. There's something oddly perfunctory about the writing; Stone's back story, which she discusses during the film, feels like an afterthought, which matters, considering that the audience is supposed to care whether these characters live or die. Kowalski's story, apart from one humorous anecdote he repeats throughout the film, is just about nonexistent. It is fortunate that the actors make up for the script's shortcomings with utter conviction in their performances, especially considering that they were probably acting against green screens most of the time.
My favorite astronauts-in-peril movie remains Ron Howard's Apollo 13, but for sheer urgency and visual effects splendor, Gravity has set a new standard. Kudos to everyone involved.
4.5/5
Sunday, September 22, 2013
Self-Discovery at 170mph: A Review of Rush
The 70s have been good to Ron Howard. His starring role in George Lucas' 1974 film American Graffiti turned heads, and his lead role in the popular television series Happy Days, that ran throughout the 70s, made him a household name. One of his most successful and acclaimed films to date, Apollo 13, was based on events that took place in 1970.
It seems fitting, then, that he should revisit the era of bellbottom pants and shaggy haircuts, which also happened to be the setting for one of the most fascinating rivalries in the history of Formula One racing: the 1976 World Driver's Championship, which was contested by Englishman James Hunt of McLaren Racing and Austrian Niki Lauda of Scuderia Ferrari. Howard and screenwriter Peter Morgan, in dramatizing this rivalry, have created one of the best movies this year, and one of the best movies involving motor racing in, well, ever.
The story begins at one of the most pivotal points of the '76 season, the beginning of the 1976 German Grand Prix, with Lauda (played brilliantly by German actor Daniel Bruhl) sitting in his Ferrari race car and observing his championship rival Hunt (Chris Hemsworth) across the racing grid, making his preparations. Lauda does a brief voiceover narration, and the story flashes back to six years earlier. Hunt and Lauda meet while racing in Formula 2, in a "feeder series" to Formula One, where their rivalry is instant, and intense. As the story unfolds, it emerges that they have a lot in common, more than just their passion and skills for racing cars. Both of them come from affluent families that do not support their racing dreams, and both of them are colossal egomaniacs. Of the two of them, however, Lauda is somewhat more proactive; he buys his way into the top tier of racing, Formula One, by taking out a loan and buying heavily into a team that is on its last legs. His ability to set up the car and make it go faster endears him to Swiss teammate Clay Regazzoni (Pierfrancesco Favino), a former driver for the world famous Scuderia Ferrari who, when invited to return to the Italian team, takes Lauda along with him. Hunt, meanwhile is able to get into F1 when his friend and backer, Lord Alexander Hesketh (Christian McKay) decides to enter his own team, albeit without corporate sponsorship. It is also at this point that Lauda and Hunt meet women who will prove pivotal to their lives, with Lauda meeting his future wife Marlene Knaus (Alexandra Maria Lara) and Hunt meeting his wife, model Suzy Miller (Olivia Wilde) just before the 1975 season. Their fortunes vary from this point; Lauda wins the F1 championship, while Hunt's team, unable to secure sponsorship, has to pull out, leaving Hunt without a drive for the next year. However, at the last minute Hunt is able to secure a drive with the McLaren team, which has the only car fast enough to beat Lauda's Ferrari, thus setting the stage for one of the most memorable season-long rivalries in the history of motorsport.
Prior to this film, the last full-length feature film that Hollywood had made about Formula One was John Frankenheimer's 1966 film Grand Prix, which I have on DVD. Sylvester Stallone attempted to secure the rights to make an F1-themed film but was turned down by F1 supremo Bernie Ecclestone, as a result of which, the 2001 film Driven was set against the now-defunct Champ Car series. It was just as well, too; that movie was so bad that it would not have done F1 any favors as a marketing tool. Three years ago, Working Title, the company responsible for producing this film, came up with the documentary Senna. Rush is the first feature film that has been produced about F1 in nearly 50 years, and therefore something of a milestone.
Director Howard, who confessed to not knowing anything about Formula One prior to making this film, may have seemed an odd choice to direct it, but watching the painstaking recreation of the era and the races I would hardly have guessed he was an F1 novice. The racing scenes, are extremely well-presented using a skillful blend of stunt driving and computer-generated imagery, although they do not quite have the balls-to-the-wall verisimilitude that makes Grand Prix a classic among racing fans. I suppose, though, that this is inevitable considering that in 1966 safety concerns, either in the world of racing or film-making, were not as paramount as they are today. What I found remarkable about this film was how incredibly rich it was in terms of character development, something on which Grand Prix basically skimped, with the paper thin plot and characters basically serving as an excuse to string together the bravura racing sequences.
When I heard this movie was getting made I felt a touch of apprehension; how, I wondered, does one capture the drama of an entire F1 season (the 1976 season had 16 races) in a two-hour feature film? I was also a little worried that, with a British writer crafting the screenplay and a Hollywood up-and-comer (Hemsworth) playing Englishman Hunt, that Lauda's character, an Austrian with a funny accent, would be reduced to playing a generic Euro-nasty "villain" next to Hunt's "hero." After all, Senna, a documentary, had been criticized by many for its somewhat one-sided portrayal of rivalry between the late Brazilian firebrand Ayrton Senna and Frenchman Alain Prost in the late 1980s and early 1990s. A feature film, with a script and actors, would be much more vulnerable to slanted storytelling than a documentary.
Upon watching the film, I was happy to learn that my fears were unfounded; Working Title may have used Hemsworth's face on the posters but this movie belonged in equal measure to Hunt and Lauda. In fact, the Lauda role gets meatier as the story progresses, and he even has the distinction of opening and closing the film with a bit of voice-over narration.
It's worth pointing out the difference between Hemsworth's and Bruhl's performances, which feel as different as the approaches to racing of their characters. Hemsworth, whose Hunt is really not all that different from the character for which he is most famous, the superhero Thor, didn't have to alter his acting too much, and about the only major adjustment he had to make in terms of his performance was to drop a few f-bombs and take off his shirt a lot (and sometimes, a bit more than that). Still, he milked his movie-star charisma for everything it was worth in this role; if Thor was a mythological god, Hunt was, in those days, a god of sorts in his own right, and Hemsworth portrayed that to near perfection. He also captured a great deal of Hunt's insecurity and vulnerability as well.
Bruhl's performance, however was simply in a different league from Hemsworth's. I remember him as the genteel, French-speaking Nazi sniper from Inglourious Basterds, which made his transformation into the abrasive Austrian racing legend, even when aided by some pretty convincing prosthetics, all the more striking. Even more striking was how he managed to uncover the humanity in a character who seemed so determined to shed it. Neither Hunt nor Lauda was a particularly likable character in this film, but while Hunt's roguish charm made him the sort of person whom people tend to like even when they shouldn't, Lauda, at least as depicted in the film, was basically the person most people would love to hate in real life. Bruhl, in short, had a taller mountain to climb than Hemsworth in terms of getting the audience to connect with his character, but if I'm any judge, he most certainly managed to reach the very top. I've always sucked at predicting awards or even awards nominations but I seriously hope this guy at least finds himself in contention for some gold later this year and early next year.
Still, as much as this film belongs to the lead actors, this is still Ron Howard's show, and it marks a welcome return to form for him after a few creative missteps over the years. To my mind, this is his best film since Apollo 13. The energy with which he infuses this film, which could so easily have gone wrong in the hands of a lesser filmmaker, is infectious; everyone single one of his collaborators here, from cinematographer Anthony Dod Mantle to film editors Mike Hill and Dan Hanley to composer Hans Zimmer, is firing on all cylinders. The grainy, 70s-style cinematography puts the viewer right in the moment, as do the incredible, if slightly clipped racing scenes, and the swelling, cello-heavy score is some of the most stirring music that Zimmer has written in years.
Yes, like all historical dramas, the film takes certain liberties with what really happened, but there is nothing here as egregious as the wholly contrived airport chase in last year's Argo (a film I also enjoyed thoroughly), and as far as I can tell, in no instance was the truth completely butchered just to drive along the story. I could be wrong, but considering that a lot of people from the F1 community, including no less than F1 head Ecclestone and even Lauda himself, have given this movie the thumbs-up, I don't think I am.
I'll admit that I wanted to like this movie walking into the theater, but it's quite rare that a movie I have wanted to see as much as I wanted to see this film managed to be everything I was hoping for and more. The best part is that my wife, who could not really give a damn about Formula One but for my personal addiction to it, thoroughly enjoyed this film, as I think many non-F1 fans will.
People may have had to wait nearly five decades for a proper film about Formula One, but Ron Howard and his cast and crew have definitely made Rush worth that wait.
5/5
It seems fitting, then, that he should revisit the era of bellbottom pants and shaggy haircuts, which also happened to be the setting for one of the most fascinating rivalries in the history of Formula One racing: the 1976 World Driver's Championship, which was contested by Englishman James Hunt of McLaren Racing and Austrian Niki Lauda of Scuderia Ferrari. Howard and screenwriter Peter Morgan, in dramatizing this rivalry, have created one of the best movies this year, and one of the best movies involving motor racing in, well, ever.
The story begins at one of the most pivotal points of the '76 season, the beginning of the 1976 German Grand Prix, with Lauda (played brilliantly by German actor Daniel Bruhl) sitting in his Ferrari race car and observing his championship rival Hunt (Chris Hemsworth) across the racing grid, making his preparations. Lauda does a brief voiceover narration, and the story flashes back to six years earlier. Hunt and Lauda meet while racing in Formula 2, in a "feeder series" to Formula One, where their rivalry is instant, and intense. As the story unfolds, it emerges that they have a lot in common, more than just their passion and skills for racing cars. Both of them come from affluent families that do not support their racing dreams, and both of them are colossal egomaniacs. Of the two of them, however, Lauda is somewhat more proactive; he buys his way into the top tier of racing, Formula One, by taking out a loan and buying heavily into a team that is on its last legs. His ability to set up the car and make it go faster endears him to Swiss teammate Clay Regazzoni (Pierfrancesco Favino), a former driver for the world famous Scuderia Ferrari who, when invited to return to the Italian team, takes Lauda along with him. Hunt, meanwhile is able to get into F1 when his friend and backer, Lord Alexander Hesketh (Christian McKay) decides to enter his own team, albeit without corporate sponsorship. It is also at this point that Lauda and Hunt meet women who will prove pivotal to their lives, with Lauda meeting his future wife Marlene Knaus (Alexandra Maria Lara) and Hunt meeting his wife, model Suzy Miller (Olivia Wilde) just before the 1975 season. Their fortunes vary from this point; Lauda wins the F1 championship, while Hunt's team, unable to secure sponsorship, has to pull out, leaving Hunt without a drive for the next year. However, at the last minute Hunt is able to secure a drive with the McLaren team, which has the only car fast enough to beat Lauda's Ferrari, thus setting the stage for one of the most memorable season-long rivalries in the history of motorsport.
Prior to this film, the last full-length feature film that Hollywood had made about Formula One was John Frankenheimer's 1966 film Grand Prix, which I have on DVD. Sylvester Stallone attempted to secure the rights to make an F1-themed film but was turned down by F1 supremo Bernie Ecclestone, as a result of which, the 2001 film Driven was set against the now-defunct Champ Car series. It was just as well, too; that movie was so bad that it would not have done F1 any favors as a marketing tool. Three years ago, Working Title, the company responsible for producing this film, came up with the documentary Senna. Rush is the first feature film that has been produced about F1 in nearly 50 years, and therefore something of a milestone.
Director Howard, who confessed to not knowing anything about Formula One prior to making this film, may have seemed an odd choice to direct it, but watching the painstaking recreation of the era and the races I would hardly have guessed he was an F1 novice. The racing scenes, are extremely well-presented using a skillful blend of stunt driving and computer-generated imagery, although they do not quite have the balls-to-the-wall verisimilitude that makes Grand Prix a classic among racing fans. I suppose, though, that this is inevitable considering that in 1966 safety concerns, either in the world of racing or film-making, were not as paramount as they are today. What I found remarkable about this film was how incredibly rich it was in terms of character development, something on which Grand Prix basically skimped, with the paper thin plot and characters basically serving as an excuse to string together the bravura racing sequences.
When I heard this movie was getting made I felt a touch of apprehension; how, I wondered, does one capture the drama of an entire F1 season (the 1976 season had 16 races) in a two-hour feature film? I was also a little worried that, with a British writer crafting the screenplay and a Hollywood up-and-comer (Hemsworth) playing Englishman Hunt, that Lauda's character, an Austrian with a funny accent, would be reduced to playing a generic Euro-nasty "villain" next to Hunt's "hero." After all, Senna, a documentary, had been criticized by many for its somewhat one-sided portrayal of rivalry between the late Brazilian firebrand Ayrton Senna and Frenchman Alain Prost in the late 1980s and early 1990s. A feature film, with a script and actors, would be much more vulnerable to slanted storytelling than a documentary.
Upon watching the film, I was happy to learn that my fears were unfounded; Working Title may have used Hemsworth's face on the posters but this movie belonged in equal measure to Hunt and Lauda. In fact, the Lauda role gets meatier as the story progresses, and he even has the distinction of opening and closing the film with a bit of voice-over narration.
It's worth pointing out the difference between Hemsworth's and Bruhl's performances, which feel as different as the approaches to racing of their characters. Hemsworth, whose Hunt is really not all that different from the character for which he is most famous, the superhero Thor, didn't have to alter his acting too much, and about the only major adjustment he had to make in terms of his performance was to drop a few f-bombs and take off his shirt a lot (and sometimes, a bit more than that). Still, he milked his movie-star charisma for everything it was worth in this role; if Thor was a mythological god, Hunt was, in those days, a god of sorts in his own right, and Hemsworth portrayed that to near perfection. He also captured a great deal of Hunt's insecurity and vulnerability as well.
Bruhl's performance, however was simply in a different league from Hemsworth's. I remember him as the genteel, French-speaking Nazi sniper from Inglourious Basterds, which made his transformation into the abrasive Austrian racing legend, even when aided by some pretty convincing prosthetics, all the more striking. Even more striking was how he managed to uncover the humanity in a character who seemed so determined to shed it. Neither Hunt nor Lauda was a particularly likable character in this film, but while Hunt's roguish charm made him the sort of person whom people tend to like even when they shouldn't, Lauda, at least as depicted in the film, was basically the person most people would love to hate in real life. Bruhl, in short, had a taller mountain to climb than Hemsworth in terms of getting the audience to connect with his character, but if I'm any judge, he most certainly managed to reach the very top. I've always sucked at predicting awards or even awards nominations but I seriously hope this guy at least finds himself in contention for some gold later this year and early next year.
Still, as much as this film belongs to the lead actors, this is still Ron Howard's show, and it marks a welcome return to form for him after a few creative missteps over the years. To my mind, this is his best film since Apollo 13. The energy with which he infuses this film, which could so easily have gone wrong in the hands of a lesser filmmaker, is infectious; everyone single one of his collaborators here, from cinematographer Anthony Dod Mantle to film editors Mike Hill and Dan Hanley to composer Hans Zimmer, is firing on all cylinders. The grainy, 70s-style cinematography puts the viewer right in the moment, as do the incredible, if slightly clipped racing scenes, and the swelling, cello-heavy score is some of the most stirring music that Zimmer has written in years.
Yes, like all historical dramas, the film takes certain liberties with what really happened, but there is nothing here as egregious as the wholly contrived airport chase in last year's Argo (a film I also enjoyed thoroughly), and as far as I can tell, in no instance was the truth completely butchered just to drive along the story. I could be wrong, but considering that a lot of people from the F1 community, including no less than F1 head Ecclestone and even Lauda himself, have given this movie the thumbs-up, I don't think I am.
I'll admit that I wanted to like this movie walking into the theater, but it's quite rare that a movie I have wanted to see as much as I wanted to see this film managed to be everything I was hoping for and more. The best part is that my wife, who could not really give a damn about Formula One but for my personal addiction to it, thoroughly enjoyed this film, as I think many non-F1 fans will.
People may have had to wait nearly five decades for a proper film about Formula One, but Ron Howard and his cast and crew have definitely made Rush worth that wait.
5/5
Friday, September 20, 2013
Surviving "Deep Throat:" A Review of Lovelace
I found myself stuck in Manila last week, with a bit of time to kill to wait out traffic, so I caught a film that I would not normally watch, the biopic Lovelace, directed by Jeffrey Friedman and Rob Epstein and starring Amanda Seyfried, about the young woman who made the legendary pornographic film Deep Throat.
I'm just going to be frank here; given that I had about two hours to kill, a movie about people who made a porno seemed like a good idea, for obvious reasons. What I got was basically a bit of a diatribe on exploitation and domestic abuse, and, unfortunately, not a very good one.
Linda Boreman (Seyfried) is a 21-year-old Catholic girl living with her parents John and Dorothy (Robert Patrick and Sharon Stone) in Florida. While somewhat conservative herself, she is friends with a somewhat more adventurous young woman, Patsy (Juno Temple) who, one night at a roller skating rink, convinces Linda to be a go-go dancer for the band playing at the rink. This gets the attention of Chuck Traynor (Peter Sarsgaard) with whom Linda eventually gets involved and whom she eventually marries. Chuck is apparently into some shady business, and eventually gets himself and Linda into a spot of financial trouble. Thus begins the series of events that leads Linda to starring in Deep Throat, which, overall turns out to be an extremely unpleasant experience for Linda, who reveals everything in her scathing autobiography years after she has left that life behind.
I get that this movie was not in any way meant to titillate (and just to make absolutely sure, the producers chopped out one or two scenes involving oral sex in order to secure an "R-16" rating from our local classification board), and it certainly doesn't, but as a narrative tapestry it falls short on multiple levels.
The first half of the movie is meant to depict Linda and Chuck as a loving couple, fighting the odds, and even managing to have a good time amid trying times, even when Linda is sucking another guy's cock in front of a camera just to make ends meet for the two of them. The second half is the "grim" portion in which Linda tells the truth behind what happened, replete with Chuck's abuse and Linda's suffering until it all comes to a head.
However, this transition in contrasts is not done nearly as well as it should have been, and I for one could not help but wonder if it was a good idea to attempt it in the first place.
The problem with the narrative flow is that the filmmakers show their hand very early on in the film and make it hard to feel "shock" at what follows. I had no idea what kind of life Goreman lived, but the movie telegraphed its beats very early on.
Probably the worst part of the film was Sarsgaard, who, from the moment his Chuck Traynor appeared onscreen, was never able to convince me that he was anything other than a complete sleazebag, and this failure basically taints the entire film, which supposedly spends its first half depicting a young couple in love, only to peel the veneer of seeming happiness away and reveal the ugly truth just underneath the surface. Thanks to Sarsgaard's projection of Traynor's inner wife-beater early on in the film, it was basically easy to see where things were going, even though I hadn't had the faintest idea of what had really happened to her going into the theater. To be fair to Sarsgaard, the muddled script and direction had a lot to do with the narrative basically going all over the place. It's a pity, because Seyfried turns in a really earnest performance, and for anyone even vaguely interested in seeing her "bits," she goes topless once or twice in the film, though I guarantee that only a genuine sicko could be aroused at one or two of the scenes in which it happens.
Another wasted performance is that of Sharon Stone, who was virtually unrecognizable as Dorothy Boreman and who I didn't even realize was in the movie until I saw the end credits. I loved what she did here, and if she turns in more performances like this could give her career a bit of a second wind. This movie will most likely be forgotten, though.
The film's advocacy, which is basically to condemn exploitation of women and domestic violence, is certainly admirable, but the telling of the story, unfortunately, is not.
1.5/5
I'm just going to be frank here; given that I had about two hours to kill, a movie about people who made a porno seemed like a good idea, for obvious reasons. What I got was basically a bit of a diatribe on exploitation and domestic abuse, and, unfortunately, not a very good one.
Linda Boreman (Seyfried) is a 21-year-old Catholic girl living with her parents John and Dorothy (Robert Patrick and Sharon Stone) in Florida. While somewhat conservative herself, she is friends with a somewhat more adventurous young woman, Patsy (Juno Temple) who, one night at a roller skating rink, convinces Linda to be a go-go dancer for the band playing at the rink. This gets the attention of Chuck Traynor (Peter Sarsgaard) with whom Linda eventually gets involved and whom she eventually marries. Chuck is apparently into some shady business, and eventually gets himself and Linda into a spot of financial trouble. Thus begins the series of events that leads Linda to starring in Deep Throat, which, overall turns out to be an extremely unpleasant experience for Linda, who reveals everything in her scathing autobiography years after she has left that life behind.
I get that this movie was not in any way meant to titillate (and just to make absolutely sure, the producers chopped out one or two scenes involving oral sex in order to secure an "R-16" rating from our local classification board), and it certainly doesn't, but as a narrative tapestry it falls short on multiple levels.
The first half of the movie is meant to depict Linda and Chuck as a loving couple, fighting the odds, and even managing to have a good time amid trying times, even when Linda is sucking another guy's cock in front of a camera just to make ends meet for the two of them. The second half is the "grim" portion in which Linda tells the truth behind what happened, replete with Chuck's abuse and Linda's suffering until it all comes to a head.
However, this transition in contrasts is not done nearly as well as it should have been, and I for one could not help but wonder if it was a good idea to attempt it in the first place.
The problem with the narrative flow is that the filmmakers show their hand very early on in the film and make it hard to feel "shock" at what follows. I had no idea what kind of life Goreman lived, but the movie telegraphed its beats very early on.
Probably the worst part of the film was Sarsgaard, who, from the moment his Chuck Traynor appeared onscreen, was never able to convince me that he was anything other than a complete sleazebag, and this failure basically taints the entire film, which supposedly spends its first half depicting a young couple in love, only to peel the veneer of seeming happiness away and reveal the ugly truth just underneath the surface. Thanks to Sarsgaard's projection of Traynor's inner wife-beater early on in the film, it was basically easy to see where things were going, even though I hadn't had the faintest idea of what had really happened to her going into the theater. To be fair to Sarsgaard, the muddled script and direction had a lot to do with the narrative basically going all over the place. It's a pity, because Seyfried turns in a really earnest performance, and for anyone even vaguely interested in seeing her "bits," she goes topless once or twice in the film, though I guarantee that only a genuine sicko could be aroused at one or two of the scenes in which it happens.
Another wasted performance is that of Sharon Stone, who was virtually unrecognizable as Dorothy Boreman and who I didn't even realize was in the movie until I saw the end credits. I loved what she did here, and if she turns in more performances like this could give her career a bit of a second wind. This movie will most likely be forgotten, though.
The film's advocacy, which is basically to condemn exploitation of women and domestic violence, is certainly admirable, but the telling of the story, unfortunately, is not.
1.5/5
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