“Straight Outta Compton” is getting a lot of buzz about landing an Oscar nomination for Best Picture -- we’ll know by the time you’re reading this -- which is an intriguing idea.
While it’s not among my top picks for best films of 2015, it was certainly a very good one, an exploration of the gritty early days of “gangsta rap.” And certainly the Academy has a regrettable history of ignoring African-American stories and filmmakers.
Director F. Gary Gray and screenwriters Andrea Berloff and Jonathan Herman are essentially doing the “authorized biography” version of rap icons N.W.A., as Dr. Dre and Ice Cube, the two enduring giants of the group, are producers on the film. Cube’s real-life son, O’Shea Jackson Jr., even plays his daddy (and does a standout job).
At first glance it might seem like a typical rise-and-fall story of musical success, with egos and nefarious hangers-on leading to strife and disbandment. The middle section of the movie is a bit bloated, with an overindulgence of scenes of hard partying and female flesh displayed.
But what makes “Compton” rise above is the meaty substance at the heart of the story. These were real South L.A. black kids, surrounded by drugs, violence and police brutality, and their songs were an angry shout to an uncaring world about the reality of their plight.
The cast is rounded out by Corey Hawkins as Dre, represented here as the artistic purist; Jason Mitchell as Eazy-E, the hardest of the hardcore and doomed mogul; R. Marcos Taylor as Suge Knight, who muscles his way into a lucrative game; and Paul Giamatti as Jerry Heller, the white manager who put the group on the map, and made sure he got rich for it.
(Not surprisingly, the film has been freshly sued by Heller.)
You can buy the film as either the theatrical version or an unrated director’s cut that adds about 20 minutes to the runtime.
Bonus features include deleted scenes (including one song performance), feature length commentary track with Gray, and a half-dozen making-of featurettes on filming in Compton, the group’s formation and cultural impact, and more.
“Love & Mercy” is an unconventional biopic about an unconventional musician. Brian Wilson was a self-taught prodigy who composed Billboard Top 10 hits for the Beach Boys of increasing musical complexity, even as his personal life sank into a morass of drugs, harmful relationships and mental illness.
Director Bill Pohlad, a veteran producer stepping behind the camera, and screenwriters Michael A. Lerner and Oren Moverman, set the story in two distinct points in Wilson’s life, the mid-1960s and mid-80s, and cast a pair of different actors to play him. The performances don’t match, deliberately so, since they’re showing Wilson as he descended into his two-decade period of purgatory, and then trying to climb out of it.
Paul Dano portrays Wilson as a young man looking to break out of the mold of flighty songs about girls, surfing and cars – much to the consternation of his brothers, bandmates and controlling father, who just want the hits to keep on coming.
John Cusack plays him in early middle age, struggling to break free of his torpor and reenter the world, with the help of a tough-but-tender Cadillac saleswoman (Elizabeth Banks) who acts as his touchstone.
Serving as the anchor is Dr. Eugene Landy (Paul Giamatti), the Machiavellian psychiatrist who kept Wilson under virtual lock and key for years, deciding where he would go and with whom he would associate. As good as Giamatti was as the conniving manager in “Straight Outta Compton,” you should be aware it was his second – and second-best – portrayal of an infamous musical Svengali this year.
The movie really sings during the studio sessions where Wilson created the album “Pet Sounds” essentially in secret, using professional musicians instead of his siblings’ barely competent guitars and drums. Wilson is trying to replicate the sounds and voices he hears in his head, and funnel the burgeoning madness into what would become one of the greatest pop records of all time.
“Love & Mercy” is a stunning portrait of a man who made beautiful music while suffering a tragic existence. This discord is finely in tune.
Bonus features are agreeable, and are the same for Blu-ray and DVD editions. There are two making-of featurettes, “A California Story: Creating the Look of ‘Love & Mercy’” and “A-Side/B-Side: Portraying the Life of Brian Wilson.” There are also deleted scenes and a feature-length commentary track by Pohlad and Moverman.
Even for a total rap agnostic like yours truly, it wasn't hard to recognize the power and brutal honesty of N.W.A. and the other early driving forces of what came to be known as "gangsta rap."
Exploding on the staid late 1980s music scene like a Molotov cocktail at a cocktail party, N.W.A.'s 1988 album, "Straight Outta Compton," gave voice to a generation of young black men who grew up feeling like they had the boot of society in general, and law enforcement officials in particular, pressed up against the back of their neck.
Their music was loud, proud, rude, crude, defiant and energetic. Shocking to mainstream white ears, these were the true life stories of urban youths surrounded every day by violence and drugs.
The movie about them, directed by F. Gary Gray from a script by Andrea Berloff and Jonathan Herman, traces the quick rise and quicker fall of N.W.A., but also aims for more. It's essentially the history of the first decade of a new art form and the seedy, frequently violent business that sprung up around it. We witness the rise of the East Coast-vs.-West Coast rap war, and watch artists pushed aside by thugs.
Keep in mind, this is essentially the "authorized biography" version of N.W.A. Dr. Dre and Ice Cube, the two main driving forces of the group, serve as producers on the film and Cube's real-life son, O'Shea Jackson Jr., plays him (and is a charismatic dead ringer). Not surprisingly, they come off looking the best in the movie.
Dre (Corey Hawkins) is portrayed as the artistic purist, the music producer and idea man who comes up with the beats and polishes the sounds. Cube is the surly, beating heart of the group, who pens rhymes about his young life of struggle and spits them out angrily at an uncaring world.
Eazy-E (Jason Mitchell) is depicted as the accidental front man, a drug dealer who put up the money for N.W.A.'s first album and got recruited to lay down some of the lines others had written. He becomes the overnight mogul of Ruthless Records, and hoards much of the fame and cash for himself. Eazy died of AIDS at the age of 31, and his passing serves as the denouement of rap's innocence.
Other group members DJ Yella (Neil Brown Jr.), MC Ren (Aldis Hodge) and The D.O.C. (Marlon Yates Jr.) are essentially shunted off to the side. Jerry Heller, played by Paul Giamatti, is the Svengali whispering in Eazy's ear. He's quite a conniver in the film's depiction, a money grubber who pitted the N.W.A. crew against each other, convincing them to leave the "paperwork" of the business side to him -- and always made sure his end was covered first.
Suge Knight (R. Marcos Taylor) wades into the film about halfway through, a brutish bodyguard who muscles his way into the management side of the rap game, promising protection but offering servitude. The real Suge is currently jail after allegedly running down two men with his car, one fatally, after leaving the set of this film.
The music of N.W.A. is the centerpiece of the film, and Gray grandly captures the vibrancy and anger of their lyrics. White suburban kids like me might've been shocked by songs with (cleaned-up) titles like "Eff tha Police," but then I didn't get thrown onto the hood of an LAPD squad car while walking home and have my homework rifled through for drugs.
The middle section of the film is predictably fat, with an over-emphasis on the hard-partying ways of N.W.A., with a lot of bouncing female flesh on display for little reason. One of the key criticisms of rap, and this cinematic reflection of it, is how it objectifies women.
At nearly 2½ hours, the film is too long and too self-indulgent for its own good. But it captures the excitement and danger of N.W.A. and the cultural movement it fostered.
"San Andreas" is like a lot of second-tier summer action movies: it's not very original, it's not very smart, it contains several gag-inducing unintentional laugh moments -- yet it'd be unfair to say that it's not breezily entertaining.
It's essentially a remake of "2012" from a few years back, with a natural disaster laying waste to large stretches of populated lands as various groups of people struggle to escape the unfolding mayhem, with ashen-faced scientists popping in occasionally to explain what's going on and warn that the worst is yet to come. It even recycles that movie's story of a divorced couple rekindling their love amidst the chaos.
Hey, I'm sure the millions of dead don't mind their fate if one family is brought back together!!
I admit I've kind of soured on Dwayne Rock's stardom. He showed some sneaky acting chops and deft comedic timing in a few offbeat roles, many of them supporting, but at some point he and his handlers decided he needs to be Schwarzenegger II. It's all popping muscles and post-smash quips these days.
(Though few in Hollywood seem to notice that he's better at invigorating existing film franchises as a sideshow player than his own star vehicles.)
"San Andreas" rehabilitated him a little bit in my estimation. He uses his big soulful eyes more than his swollen body. He plays a dad who's wounded and vulnerable, and just wants to protect his family. It makes him a lot more sympathetic as a character.
He plays Chief Pilot Ray Gaines of the L.A. Fire Department, and as we establish in an opening canyon rescue sequence, he is the best there is at flying choppers and saving lives.
But then a curious thing happens: a rolling wave of dire earthquakes start shaking California to bits, and Ray's first instinct is... to abandon his duties and go rescue his ex-wife and teen daughter instead!
That's right, he flies off in an expensive rescue helicopter that could be saving a bunch of people's lives, and instead rescues his ex-sweetie (Carla Gugino) off the top of a collapsing skyscraper. All the other people in that building trying to survive? Screw them!
Then they fly the chopper for hours north to San Francisco to rescue their daughter. It sputters out, so along the way they also have to steal a truck, a plane and a boat to continue their journey. At no point do they take the initiative to stop and save anyone else. They fly over an inferno of fires, looting and human degradation and Ray looks down and says, "That's Bakersfield," as if that explains everything.
So just so we're all clear, this is a movie about a heroic, superhuman fire/rescue guy who, when the shit really hits the fan, can be totally depended upon to GO AWOL AND OBSTINATELY REFUSE TO DO HIS JOB.
At one point Ray and his wife are cruising through the flooded streets of San Francisco on a boat -- what's an earthquake without a tsunami? -- when they pass by some random guy who also has a boat and is out finding trapped people to rescue. I kept wanting someone to turn to him and say, "Ray, isn't that what YOU'RE supposed to be doing???"
What's really ironic is that the heavy is a super-rich guy (Ioan Gruffudd) who is Ray's ex-wife's new boyfriend, who keeps abandoning people to save his own skin. But if you think about it, that's exactly what Ray does: look after his own personal self-interests rather than working for the greater good. Dang those nefarious 1-percenters.
Alexandra Daddario, with her big blue eyes, copious thigh gap and jiggling assets, plays Blake, who in some geneticist's dream factory is the daughter of Johnson and Gugino. Also tagging along are Hugo Johnstone-Burt and Art Parkinson as a pair of adorable British brothers here to provide classy accents and derring-do. Paul Giamatti plays the scientist, who finds out how to predict earthquakes using "magnetic pole rates," but alas too late to warn anyone.
There are some perilous sequences here and there, often involving people trying to dodge out of the way as buildings collapse around them. The CGI is a bit cut-rate, but gets the job done.
As cinematic fare, "San Andreas" has the same nutritional profile as the stuff out at the concession stand: tasty, empty calories.
Sophomore slumps are an unfortunate reality for plenty of big-budget sequels, and that includes “The Amazing Spider-Man 2.” It’s still an enjoyable comic book flick featuring everyone’s favorite web-slinger, but it can’t muster the verve and pizzazz of its predecessor.
Its main problem is an overabundance of characters and plot. The best super-hero movies tend to focus on a single villain or existentialist threat, but here we’ve got storylines splayed all over the place like random spider webs.
Peter Parker/Spider-Man (Andrew Garfield) has to deal with at least three bad guys, including his best friend Harry Osborn (Dane DeHaan) slowly turning into the Green Goblin and Paul Giamatti rampaging (briefly) as the Rhino.
The main heavy is Jamie Foxx as Max, a shy social outcast who idolizes Spidey. He gets zapped by some electrical eels and turned into a living power generator who dubs himself Electro – with his emotions clearing having no voltage regulator.
Foxx makes for a terrific villain, a man deluded by his own quest for power, and compares favorably with Alfred Molina’s Dr. Octopus from the last Spider-Man iteration. But he’s not given enough screen time to fully flesh out the character. Similarly, the Harry/Peter and Green Goblin/Spider-Man twin conflicts show just enough promise to suggest they deserved their own movie to fully explore.
On top of all these super-villains to fight, Peter’s got a lot weighing on his shoulders: a will they/won’t they romance with Gwen Stacy (Emma Stone), guilt over the death of Gwen’s cop father, tensions with Aunt May (Sally Field), and the mystery of Peter’s disappeared parents.
The CG action scenes are still a blast, but sometimes less really is more. A more focused film would’ve been a better one.
Fortunately, the video extras are first-rate. The DVD comes with four deleted scenes with commentary by director Marc Webb, a feature length commentary track, and the “It’s On Again” music video with Alicia Keys.
Upgrade to the Blu-ray edition, and you add nine more deleted scenes and a comprehensive making-of documentary, “The Wages of Heroism: Making The Amazing Spider-Man 2.”
Just a short review today, folks. Joe is handling the main article over at The Film Yap, and ably so, so please head over there to check it out.
I was very cynical about the reboot of the Spider-Man franchise. As I wrote at the time, undertaking a production just so the creative rights to the character won't revert to the previous owner is a terrifically awful reason to make a movie. But director Marc Webb, his cast and crew came up with a fresh take on familiar characters and themes. It was exhilirating.
As I also wrote, "The Amazing Spider-Man" also took its time building up the mythology of their new-ish universe, grounding the characters and rendering them relatable as people. In other words, it earned its emotional capital for the kabloowie stuff later on.
With the sequel, I often felt like the filmmakers were using shorthand and shortcuts. Dialogue scenes barely begin before they reach their emotional crescendo. Action scenes jump straight to the big explosions and CG effects. There's no foreplay, just "hello" and wham-bang.
Maybe I'm getting old, but I need a film to stoke my fires a little bit before getting to the main event.
There are some wonderful actors in this movie -- Andrew Garfield, Jamie Foxx, Emma Stone, Chris Cooper, Sally Field, Paul Giamatti (briefly). But as I sat there watching them spout increasingly ridiculous and/or nonsensical lines, I kept wondering how ill-used they are. This movie fails the old Gene Siskel test if you'd rather just watch that same cast sitting around lunch talking about whatever.
It's not a bad super-hero movie. I think there's actually a really good story here, buried underneath the unnecessary subplots and excess of secondary characters. Peter Parker, haunted by the death of Gwen Stacy's father in the last movie, dithers about keeping his promise to leave her alone, despite their desperate love for each other.
The main bad guy is Electro (Foxx), depicted here as a mush-mouthed, timid electric engineer who gets zapped by experimental eels at the headquarters of the evil Oscorp company. This turns him into a blue-skinned, semi-transparent being who can manipulate electrical energy -- eventually, even dis- and re-assembling his body through electricity.
His motivations aren't really clear -- something about feeling invisible and wanting the whole world to see him. Previously a Spider-Man junkie, he becomes disillusioned when the web-slinger helps capture him.
The filmmakers also throw in Harry Osborn, played by Dane DeHaan, who was born looking like a fallen angel, with a cupid's-bow mouth and dangerous eyes. His nasty dad Norman (Cooper), on his death bed, passes along his contempt as well as the "Osborn curse," a heredity disease he describes as "retro-viral hypoplasia." Basically, it turns you into a gnarled green goblin.
One of my standard metrics for comic book movies is you can rate them by how many villains they have. The truly terrific ones, like "Spider-Man 2" or "Blade," only need one really good bad guy to make things sing. With Spidey fighting Electro, the Green Goblin and even the Rhino (briefly), none of them get a chance to make a weighty impact.
Various subplots involving Peter's parentage, and his father's prominence as a scientist in the Oscorp machine, were better left on the writers' floor. Aside from muddying up the plot, it serves to diminish Peter as a character. The entire resonance of Spider-Man is that he's a nobody teenager who assumes great powers and, as we all well know, great responsibilities.
So: I liked the movie in pieces. There's a lot of good stuff here, and certainly the action sequences are fun and all you'd expect from a big summer blockbuster. This one just needed a half-dozen or so more rewrites to pare it down to its essence, instead of piling on the detritus.
Hollywood loves to tell stories about itself, and here’s a movie from Walt Disney Pictures about the making of one of its own iconic films, and starring Walt himself. Or rather, co-starring Tom Hanks as Walt Disney, a supporting role for the main character of author P.L. Travers, played by Emma Thompson.
The tale is quite simple: the irascible, guarded Mrs. Travers – don’t you dare call her Miss – doesn’t want to sell her novel “Mary Poppins” to Disney and see it turned into a piece of puffy fantasy. But she needs the money, and agrees to come out to California to collaborate with the film’s production team, while Old Walt works his twinkly charm to convince her to sign over the book rights.
The movie is essentially one long dance between Travers and Disney, with the two struggling mightily to understand a person so extravagantly different from themselves. Of course, we know how it all turned out.
(Or, at least we think we do. The film ends with the pair more or less making their peace over their very different conceptions for “Mary Poppins,” but in fact she so reviled what Disney did with her work that she forbade any further adaptations of her books.)
I really wanted to like this movie, but it held so very few surprises for me. We know early on from the flashbacks to Travers’ Australian childhood that she adored her sweet, alcoholic wastrel father (Colin Farrell) and used him as the basis for the father figure, Mr. Banks, in “Mary Poppins.” So it’s all a matter of Disney learning enough about her to puzzle out the truth.
The scene where he finally confronts her about her fears is splendidly acted by Hanks and Thompson, but flat as dry toast. It’s never a good thing when the audience is three steps ahead of the characters.
The early section is mostly about Travers playing the fish-out-of-water role, peevishly negotiating the Hollywood scene. She’s disruptive and contemptuous, treating everyone she meets quite shabbily, especially Disney’s underlings. She even dismisses the songs written for the film by the legendary Sherman Brothers (B.J. Novak and Jason Schwartzman), and regards some animated critters as vile interlopers.
Bradley Whitford turns up as screenwriter Don DaGradi, Kathy Baker is a tough studio exec and Rachel Griffiths plays Travers’ aunt. Paul Giamatti brightens things up as her appointed chauffeur, an obstinately cheerful man who serves absolutely no purpose in the story, but we just like having him around.
Since we’re discussing a film about the creative process, let me tell you a little bit about mine. I prefer to see one movie at a time, write the review within the next 24 hours, more or less be absorbed in that experience, and move on to the next. The crush of late-year screenings made that impossible, and quite frankly, I’m having trouble recalling “Saving Mr. Banks” very well. It’s only been a few days since I’ve seen it, but mentally it’s already slipping through my fingers like sand.
The best movies, and sometimes even the worst, stick with you because they make a strong impression that lingers. There are films I’ve seen only a single time many years ago that I can evoke with great clarity, both the movie itself and how I reacted to it at the time.
I’m afraid “Saving Mr. Banks” is already floating away like Poppins herself, she to her next nanny job and me the next movie review. I just wish there had been a spoonful of magic while we journeyed together.
It caused quite a sensation when it came out, but since 1853 the book “12 Years a Slave” by Solomon Northup has largely faded from memory. The movie adaptation by director Steve McQueen and screenwriter John Ridley brings the sin of slavery back into our faces with searing honesty about the brutality and dehumanization of an entire people.
Chiwetel Ejiofor, in an Oscar-worthy turn, plays Northup – an educated and talented musician and engineer from Saratoga, New York, kidnapped and sold into bondage in Louisiana, where he toiled and struggled to survive. Forced to take on the persona of “Platt,” he hid his abilities, including reading and writing, to pass himself off as a field laborer.
Over the next dozen years he experiences untold degradation and torture, having his back flayed until it is little more than a crisscross patchwork of scars. Separated from his wife and children, he can only imagine their own pain and torment. And he must submit to the rule of white Southerners who view him as a piece of chattel to be used and discarded as needs or whims serve.
Ejiofor brings an earnest grace to the role, an ordinary, intelligent man placed in hellish circumstances that defy logic. He holds onto his pride with great care, even violently defying an especially cruel overseer (Paul Dano) who can’t stand that a slave knows more about building houses than he does. Even though he eventually learns not to make waves, he never loses track of his inner soul. Because of that, hope never truly dies.
If the film has a weakness, it’s that McQueen and Ridley overplay their hand. Northup’s life prior to his ordeal is an idealized existence in which whites and blacks live in perfect harmony -- eating at each other’s tables, shopkeepers enthusiastically offering their handshake and assistance.
Ironically, it’s only in traveling to our nation’s capital (where slavery was still allowed in 1841) that he exposes himself to nefarious types who make a business of carrying off free blacks to the deep South, where they can fetch prices of $1,000. A decent, law-abiding man, Northup at first reacts with disbelief and threats to sue his oppressors. Defiance is soon (literally) beaten out of him, and a host of merchants warn him upon threat of death never to mention his real name or origin again.
At first Northup is placed in the hands of a genteel owner named Ford (Benedict Cumberbatch), who treats him with respect and makes use of the engineering skills of “Platt.” He even gives him a violin out of patriarchal devotion -- both to soothe the slaves and please his own ear.
But circumstances change, and Platt is sold to a vile man with a reputation for being stern with his slaves. The film reaches its greatest emotional heights -- and depths -- under the reign of Epps, a plantation master played by Michael Fassbender. Conflating his religious beliefs with his inhuman instincts, Epps is a caricature of a character, frightening to behold but difficult to accept as truthful.
Fassbender is leering and electric, not content to just subjugate his slaves but fawn while doing so. A favorite move is putting his face right into theirs, practically nuzzling Platt or his favorite, Patsey, before putting them to the whip, or indulging his sexual cravings, or both.
Lupita Nyong’o is a terrific presence as Patsey, a slender reed of a woman who can pick three times as much cotton in a day as most men. But she must navigate the tumultuous river of jealousy springing forth from Mrs. Epps (Sarah Paulson), who fears that her husband values a slave more than his wife.
“12 Years a Slave” is a mesmerizing cinematic experience, easily one of the best of the year. I couldn’t help feeling, though, that the filmmakers would’ve better served the audience by exercising a little more restraint. By making the villain better resemble an actual human, the crucible of slavery would have had the weight of authenticity, and been made even more harrowing.
A deeply unaffecting journey through a labyrinth of high finance and base humanity, "Cosmopolis" is a parable with no punch.
Based on the novel by Don DeLillo, unread by me, writer/director David Cronenberg has given us a highly stylized affair with a string of actors delivering long, rambling exchanges of dialogue with all the portentousness of a Shakespearean drama and all the coherence of a psychoanalysis session.
What is meant to be deadly serious is often quite silly, when it's not stultifyingly dull.
The action takes place largely inside a luxurious stretch limousine over the course of a single day. Eric Packer, a 28-year-old billionaire, decides he needs a haircut. This being New York City, getting there takes a very long time, additionally complicated by a visit by the President and a street funeral procession for a beloved rap artist.
Along the way Packer picks up and dispenses passengers, including underlings (Jay Baruchel, Samantha Morton, Emily Hampshire among them), his current mistress (Juliette Binoche) for an in-car romp, and his newly-married wife Elise (Sarah Gadon). They mostly talk about their finance schemes, including a risky bet against the Chinese yuan.
At one point Packer, who receives a physical exam from a doctor every single day, converses with a female employee while receiving a thorough prostate exam that leaves him quivering with ... something.
To these people, money is not just power but fodder for outwardly deep intellectual discussions about life, humanity and destiny. "Capital is intent," asserts one flunky, whose job title includes the word "theory," a moniker that suggests a visit from the SEC may be forthcoming.
"People eat and sleep in the shadow of what we do," another says, and he's got a better handle. Packer is like the Wizard of Oz, existing behind a carefully guarded veil that hides him from the 99 percent, who object not just to their lack but to the shameless way he exerts his surplus.
Certainly, Packer's trappings suggest the rarified world in which he lives. His limo puts the bridge of the U.S.S. Enterprise to shame, replete with glowing blue lights and computer screens -- even a bar stocked with booze and snacks, plus a convenient way to dispose of the resulting byproducts. At one point, he inquires about purchasing a famous chapel, ancient stone walls and all, and having it sequestered in his apartment.
There are mysterious references to The Complex, a shadowy group that seems to know about impending events before they actually happen, such as a spontaneous Occupy Wall Street-type uprising complete with people immolating themselves, or an important global finance minister being brutally attacked on live television.
How do they know these things? Is The Complex reading the very vibrations of the collective human unconscious to discern what lies in its soul? Or, more likely, is it just a bunch of apocalyptic-sounding mumbo-jumbo?
Torval (Kevin Durand), Packer's hulking chief of security, walks on foot outside the creeping limousine, occasionally poking his head in the window to pass on new threat calculations from The Complex.
Packer does eventually get out of his car, which only leads to stranger encounters. He tries repeatedly (and unsuccessfully) to entice his wife, who is practically a stranger to him, to have sex. We eventually meet the driver of the limo, and the barber. And the Pastry Assassin. (You'll see.) Things culminate with a potentially deadly confrontation with a deranged(?) man (Paul Giamatti) who claims to know everything there is to know about Packer.
The characters speak to each other in off-putting formal tones, like grad students debating in a philosophy seminar. "I know this" is an oft-repeated line, as if they were trying to pinpoint their place in the universe by demonstrating how much knowledge they possess, and how they wield it to crush or be crushed.
An ambitious disaster, "Cosmopolis" is a preening, pretentious mess of a movie. I know this.
"Rock of Ages" is a soundtrack with a visual component tacked on. It's not so much a musical movie as music, with a movie.
Based on a Broadway show, "Rock of Ages" is virtually non-stop singing. The story is told through the lyrics and tunes of 1980s rock hits, sometimes intermixed with each other. Occasionally the characters will cease singing long enough for a few lines of dialogue -- but even then there's a beat going in the background, and you know the talkie part is just setting up the next number.
The experience of watching it is akin to listening to a runaway jukebox stuck in the 1970s and '80s, except the voices are replaced by those of actors who can't sing as well as the original artists.
Not that some of them aren't good, and occasionally really good. Among the latter is Tom Cruise as Stacee Jaxx, a wastrel rock god who's part Iggy Pop, a little bit Axl Rose and a smidge of Brett Michaels (at least the hat). Cruise's pipes are surprisingly good, doing an impressive rendition of the keening wail beloved in that era.
In fact, Cruise is the best thing in the show. It's a shrewdly comedic performance, part celebration of '80s rock excesses but with a heavily ladling of satire. One scene where he seduces a Rolling Stone reporter (Malin Akerman) is the movie's rollicking high point.
Even though it's technically a supporting part, Cruise steals every scene he's in, and whenever Jaxx disappears for too long the film deflates.
Certainly the main characters are dreary. Julianne Hough and Diego Boneta play Sherrie and Drew, youngsters who dream of making it big in the music biz, but end up working at the fictional Bourbon Room in Los Angeles. Of course, it's only a matter of time before they get to take the stage themselves.
Neither actor is a particularly adept singer, and Hough has one of those pinched little-girl voices that sounds like she's singing through a keyhole, a la Britney Spears. She even imitates Spears' colossally annoying affection of starting every stanza with a little croaky sound.
Sherrie is the prototypical small-town girl from Tulsa, living in a lonely world, and Drew is a city boy, so of course their signature song is "Don't Stop Believin'" by Journey, a band that gets a heavy rotation throughout the movie. Other tunes include ones by Styx, Bon Jovi, Pat Benatar, Twisted Sister, Poison and other acts Generation X-ers like myself grew up on.
I find it amusing that back in the actual '80s, these songs were disdainfully described by our elders and betters as representing the nadir of rock 'n' roll, a glammed-up shadow of the good ol' days. And now they're being held up as paragons of the genre.
I take note that in the time this story is set, 1987, the '50s were seen as the heyday. No doubt in 25 years today's Millennials will be middle-aged sell-outs looking back on the halcyon days of Lady Gaga and Kei$ha, God help us.
Alec Baldwin plays Dennis, the owner of the Bourbon, which has rock 'n' roll soaked into its timbers but is perpetually on the verge of going out of business. It's being helped in that regard by the new mayor (Bryan Cranston) and his wife Patricia (Catherine Zeta-Jones), who's leading a Tipper Gore-esque crusade against smutty rock 'n' roll. Of course, she does so via singing and dancing, and is ultimately and unsurprisingly revealed to be a former Stacee Jaxx groupie.
Russell Brand plays Lonny, Dennis's right-hand rocker, and they share a romantic musical interlude that manages to be funny without being homophobic. Paul Giamatti is agreeably sleazy as Jaxx's mercenary agent, who robs the Bourbon of the take from Stacee's farewell concert.
Mary J. Blige, the only real singer in the mix, has a nice turn as the manager of a strip club where Sherrie ends up during her inevitable down-and-out phase. Drew's pit of despair is much funnier, as he gets recruited into a pop boy band, complete with rainbow-colored gangsta preppy outfits.
Director Adam Shankman does much the same thing with "Rock of Ages" he did several years ago with "Hairspray," which was sort of a 1960s version of this. He supplies a lot of energy and color, but the whirlwind winds up being more exhausting than invigorating.
At 123 minutes, screenwriters Allan Loeb, Justin Theroux and Chris D'Arienzo (based on the musical book by D'Arienzo) seemed to have a hard time knowing when to quit while they were ahead. Since the story is built entirely around songs, cutting it down would've meant eliminating tunes, and one gets the sense the filmmakers spent so much energy getting the rights to the songs they couldn't bring themselves to lop a couple out.
"Rock of Ages" has a few genuine thrills, most of them centering around Cruise's fun, freewheeling turn as Stacee Jaxx. Most of the time, though, it feels like an iPod stuck in shuffle mode.
"The Ides of March" is an ambitious, well-executed political drama that loses points because if its utter lack of freshness. From the inspiring presidential candidate with secret dark spots, to the ambitious campaign insiders and journalists ready to cut throats to get ahead, to the naive young thing who gets caught up in the crossfire, there's virtually nothing in this movie that we haven't seen before.
George Clooney directed, co-wrote and has a supporting role in "Ides" as Mike Morris, a liberal governor who's the frontrunner for the race to the White House. Ryan Gosling stars as Stephen Myers, Morris' number-two man behind grizzled political veteran Paul Zara (Philip Seymour Hoffman).
Paul Giamatti plays the campaign manager for Morris' main opponent, who's got an ace up his sleeve as they head into the Ohio primary. Rounding out the cast are Marisa Tomei as a sly New York Times reporter and Evan Rachel Wood as a 20-year-old campaign volunteer who catches Stephen's eye.
That's a killer cast, and Clooney knows exactly how to exploit it, resulting in many winning scenes of dueling repartee and clashing egos. It's during these times that the movie reminds one of other, better political flicks like "The Candidate" or "Primary Colors."
But the screenplay by Clooney, his longtime collaborator Grant Heslov and Beau Willimon, based on a play by Willimon, continually goes down paths far too well-traveled. The audience knows almost everything that's going to happen long before it transpires.
Inevitability is a quality that may work when it comes to winning elections, but it turns otherwise promising films into cinematic also-rans.
Extra features aren't a landslide, but certainly make a solid showing that should please the electorate of video lovers.
The DVD version comes with a commentary track by Clooney and Heslov, plus two featurettes: "Believe: George Clooney" and "On the Campaign: The Cast of Ides of March."
Upgrade to Blu-ray, and you get two more featurettes: "Developing the Campaign: The Origin of Ides of March" and "What Does a Political Consultant Do?".
Here's the first serious would-be contender of the season for Oscar nominations, "The Ides of March." And it's a solid base hit, but not anywhere near out of the park.
This drama directed, co-written and co-starring George Clooney is a well-intentioned cautionary tale about the corrupting nature of modern electoral politics. It's splendidly acted, with a top-notch cast that in addition to Clooney includes Ryan Gosling, Paul Giamatti, Philip Seymour Hoffman and Marisa Tomei -- Academy Award winners or nominees, all.
But it's simply not up to par with Clooney's other directorial efforts. "Good Night, and Good Luck" showed how to do old-fashioned Hollywood drama right, and even "Confessions of a Dangerous Mind" had a zany, over-the-edge frisson.
Compared to some of the films Clooney's starred in lately, like "Up in the Air" or "Michael Clayton," this movie isn't even playing the same league.
The biggest downside of "The Ides of March" is that it's so familiar. There are elements from a half-dozen political films one can pick out, but mostly it seems like the love child of "The Candidate" and "Primary Colors." The crackling dialogue and gutsy performances barely keep ahead of an impending sense of redundancy, rolling in like an inevitable tide, reminding us we've seen all this before.
"Ides" is a well-executed retread that impresses without ever surprising us.
Gosling plays Stephen Myers, the wunderkind political operator who's the number two man on the presidential campaign of Mike Morris (Clooney). The Democratic governor of Pennsylvania, Morris is currently the leading candidate for the Democratic nomination going into the Ohio primary.
Morris' campaign manager Paul Zara, a savvy veteran played by Hoffman, is in cautious playing-not-to-lose mode, while Stephen thinks they should be taking the battle for ideas to the voters --and Morris seems to be listening to Stephen.
This includes several scenes of Morris giving speeches championing the type of liberal orthodoxy favored in real life by Clooney that wouldn't last a week in a presidential election (Morris is an atheist, who thinks young people should perform two years of mandatory public service in order to attend college).
These sequences come across as Hollywood types feeling their oats, and drag the narrative to a near dead-stop as the audience contemplates how much they agree or disagree with Clooney's leftist politics, rather than concentrating on the fiction.
On the other side of the chess board is Tom Duffy (Giamatti), campaign manager for Morris' primary opponent. He's down but not out, and Tom has some cards up his sleeve to put Ohio in their column.
Out of the blue, Tom calls Stephen and asks to meet with him, which turns into a fawning play to convince him to jump ship. Stephen isn't having anything to do with it, but that doesn't mitigate the danger of Paul considering it an act of disloyalty.
Then Stephen uncovers some unsettling information about Morris, causing him to doubt his own principles. Ultimately, he makes his own power play that could alter the political landscape.
Tomei has a small but tidy role as Ida Horowicz, a reporter for the New York Times. She and Stephen have a friendly, bantering relationship, but when the moment of truth arrives she makes it clear she's primed to cut his throat to get the big story. (It may not seem like it, but that's actually a compliment.)
More problematic is Evan Rachel Wood as Molly, a 20-year-old campaign intern who makes goo-goo eyes at Stephen. Wood does about as much as she can with the role, but it's written as a human plot device rather than a person, existing merely to make the story turn in one direction or another -- no matter that it requires the character to flip on a dime, absent any logic or reason.
The screenplay is by Clooney, Grant Heslov and Beau Willimon, based on a play by Willimon.
What "The Ides of March" does best is shine on a light on the grubby inner workings of the political machine, the petty rivalries and human failings hidden by the smooth, facile face of a campaign. Clooney pans his camera from the candidate giving a speech in front of a huge crowd to the cramped hallway behind the stage, where workers and cronies literally have to step over each other as they track how every utterance is playing in real time.
It's a well-done film, respectable and serious. The actors acquit themselves with zest and skill. Unfortunately, "Ides" just has all the freshness of a outdated stump speech.
Perhaps inevitably, the sequel to "The Hangover," the surprise comedy smash of 2009, cannot quite live up to expectations. It's still plenty funny, and it's doubtful many fans of the original will walk out disappointed. Still, the novelty has worn thin.
The only thing that really distinguished the first film from any number of comedies about boys getting debauched and behaving badly was its clever narrative construction: They wake up after a wild night of pre-wedding partying with no memory of what happened, and have to piece together events based on clues.
More than one person has described it as "Bachelor Party" meets "Memento."
"Part II" is pretty much a repeat, with the action moved from Las Vegas to Bangkok. The same players are up for another round: Stu, the confidence-challenged dentist (Ed Helms) who's the bridegroom this time; Phil (Bradley Cooper), the hedonistic alpha male; and Alan (Zach Galifianakis), the clueless man-child perpetually fascinated by a world that mystifies him.
The lost boy this time is Teddy (Mason Lee), the 16-year-old younger brother to Lauren (Jamie Chung), Stu's bride-to-be. The "Wolfpack" wakes up in a scummy Bangkok hotel to find Alan's head shaved bald, Stu's face freshly etched with the same tattoo on Mike Tyson's, and Teddy gone missing ... well, mostly missing.
Instead of a lost baby to serve as their mascot, there is a chain-smoking monkey and a wordless monk in a wheelchair. They've got until the next day to find Teddy and make the wedding in time.
Also popping up again is Chow, an Asian-American crime boss with very politically incorrect speech patterns and a nose for trouble. Actor Ken Jeong, who gave a rather revealing performance in the first film, raises his game to new, um, levels.
(I should point out that the movie's release was nearly scuttled by a lawsuit by the tattoo artist who inked Mike Tyson's face for copyright infringement. Fortunately, the justice system interrupted its trivial duties prosecuting rapists to lift the injunction.)
Director Todd Phillips, who co-wrote the screenplay with Craig Mazin and Scot Armstrong, still has a few fresh tricks up his sleeve. The dialogue is sharp as ever -- Alan describes himself as "a stay-at-home son" -- and the repartee between the fellows is somehow simultaneously combative and brotherly.
Still, other sequences seem practically preordained. A visit to a local monastery is bound to lead to the boys being laid low by chop-socky. An excursion to a seedy strip club results in some uncomfortable revelations for Stu that halfway clever audience members will see coming a mile off. And Paul Giamatti is ill-used as a blustery gangster who's a lynchpin for the plot.
If it were to stand on its own, "The Hangover Part II" would register as a better-than-average smutty comedy. Despite a few slow patches, it is loaded with gut-busting laughs. After its much brainier predecessor, though, it feels like a well-meaning kid forced to follow in the footsteps of his genius older sibling.
I was expecting "Win Win" to be a black comedy, which it is not, but was still pleased with what I found. It's a wonderfully acted little drama about a tight-knit group of ordinary people whom we get to know and like, despite their quirks and flaws.
And it stars Paul Giamatti, who is to film acting what pizza is to cuisine: Even when it's bad, it's still pretty good. Even when the movie around him is shaky ("Duplicity"), he finds interesting notes to add. When he's got a sharp supporting cast and inspired direction, as Giamatti does here, watch out.
Giamatti plays Mike Flaherty, a middle-aged family lawyer whose life gets turned upside down when he takes on the guardianship of an elderly client. Then the old man's grandson shows up looking for a home and something to count on, and he turns out to be a wrestling prodigy, which just happens to be Mike's passion as coach of his old high school team.
Writer/director Thomas McCarthy, a character actor who made his debut behind the camera with 2003's "The Station Agent," constructs a movie that's not really about wrestling, though there's plenty of action on the mats.
It's more about a guy who feels rudderless in life, and then here's this kid with plenty of his own problems, but has this one zone of perfection where he's in absolute control. Mike, whose legal practice is deflating and whose team hasn't won a match all year, craves that sensation of being master of his own fate.
(I feel compelled to disclose that there were some serious projection problems at the press screening I attended, and the dialogue was hard to hear during the first half, and occasionally winked out entirely.)
Mike's wife Jackie (Amy Ryan) is the calm, rational ying to Mike's jittery yang. He's kept her in the dark about their financial troubles, and doesn't even bother to tell her he agreed to become guardian of Leo Poplar (Burt Young), a client with dementia, in order to collect the $1,508 monthly check from the state. Leo desperately wants to stay in his own house, but Mike deposits him at Oak Knoll, the local old folks home.
Mike's not a bad sort, specializing his practice in helping old people even though it isn't the most lucrative form of lawyering around. But he's got two young daughters, a nice house with a mortgage, the wrestling team to turn around, and on top of all that the boiler in his office basement announces its need to be replaced with persistent knocks and bangs.
Then Kyle (Alex Shaffer) arrives one day looking for Leo, who didn't even know he had a grandson. His daughter Cindy (Melanie Lynskey) is a druggie incommunicado for the last 20 years. Apparently she disappeared into rehab without even bothering to tell Kyle.
Kyle comes to stay with the Flahertys, strictly on a temporary basis, but the kid takes root quickly and begins to bloom. Then he tags along to wrestling practice, and Mike and his assistant coach Vigman (Jeffrey Tambor) are wowed by his viper-fast moves.
"I don't think we can teach him anything," Vigman admits.
Eventually Cindy turns up to reestablish her relationship with her father -- at least the part that involves his money -- and her son.
The dialogue is terrific, rolling off the actors' tongues with an ungilded grace, though I did find the screenplay lacking in a couple of aspects. Kyle comes across as something of a cipher, an uncommunicative wall -- even for a teenager.
The movie is less about the relationship between Kyle and Mike than what happens to Mike by meeting Kyle, and it would have been rewarding to see more give-and-take.
There's also Mike's best friend Terry (Bobby Cannavale), a scene-stealer going through a classic mid-life crisis, whose need to associate himself with Kyle's athletic success is even more desperate than Mike's. He's going through a nasty divorce, and I wanted more of his story arc.
Still, these quibbles are from someone who's not complaining about the meal, just wishing he had more of it.
In the last years of his life, the great Russian novelist Leo Tolstoy was the subject of his own religion-slash-cult. He died not at his comfortable rustic home but a remote railway station.
These two historical facts are the jumping-off point for "The Last Station," a fictionalized account of Tolstoy's last months.
It's quite doubtful that Vladimir Chertkov (Paul Giamatti), the leader of the Tolstoyans, actually sent Valentin, a young disciple (James McAvoy), to spy on the writer's family. Or that Tolstoy's wife, Sofya, was quite the fuming cauldron of anger and self-pity that Helen Mirren portrays her to be.
But as unlikely as writer/director Michael Hoffman's version of events is, it does make for a wonderful setting for this talented cast to rage and weep and otherwise emote expansively.
Tolstoy himself is something of a minor player in his own story. He's played with sly wit and veiled egotism by Christopher Plummer. Late in life, Tolstoy came to reject the comforts his riches had earned his family, and embraced a pastoral philosophy based on love and communal property.
Sofya, though, sees his desire to name the Tolstoyan movement as the main beneficiary in his will as an abandonment of their nearly 50 years of marriage.
Meanwhile, Valentin finds romance with Masha (an enchanting Kerry Condon), a Tolstoyan who especially believes in the movement's attitude regarding free love. He's equally charmed by the attention Tolstoy lavishes upon him, as well as finding Sofya a sympathetic figure.
Giamatti also has an interesting role, positioning Chertkov as a man who built a movement based on love, but doesn't seem to have much of it to express.
Extra features are a pleasing array of deleted scenes, outtakes and a featurette tribute to Christopher Plummer's career. The great actor also teams up with Mirren and Hoffman for a feature-length commentary track.
It's wonderful to see actors participate in these commentaries, which so often are boring recitations by the director working solo.
Extras are identical for Blu-ray and DVD versions.
Movie: 3 stars out of four Extras: 3 stars out of four
"Cold Souls" is a strange little movie that is trying too hard to be the next "Being John Malkovich."
It's got the same kooky plot filled with metaphysical musings about consciousness being transportable from one body to another, and having that transaction monetized by some enterprising individuals.
There's also the play on reality, with a real-life actor -- in this case, the great Paul Giamatti -- portraying a fictionalized version of himself.
The same black, dry sense of humor is there, too -- although not in great quantity. That's the film's main problem, as director/writer Sophie Barthes often forgets that she's making a comedy. Scenes start out with a humorous verve, but spin off into long stretches of tragedy before the film remembers itself.
The tone is, in fact, very much like Chekhov's "Uncle Vanya," which the play Giamatti is rehearsing as the story opens. He can't seem to nail the play's very Russian blend of humor and despair, which causes him to go into his own depression.
Seeing an article in the New Yorker about upper-crust people have their souls extracted brings him to the office of Dr. Flintstein (David Strathairn), a fussy scientist who heads up the operation. The doctor freely admits they don't fully understand the technology or long-term implications of extracting souls, other than it's guaranteed to make dark thoughts go away.
It won't make him happy, Giamatti figures, but at least it will keep him from suffering.
The nature of the soul and its physical appearance don't have any correlation, Dr. Flintstein insists, demonstrating some clear receptacles where a lot of drab, indistinct shapes reside. Still, Giamatti is upset when he undergoes the procedure and learns his soul looks like a chickpea.
"I don't even have a sexy soul. It's all dark and twisted. It's got a ridiculous shape," he complains.
Being soulless (well, mostly ... about 5 percent remains, Flintstein says) doesn't really help Giamatti's acting, and his relationship with his wife (played by Emily Watson) deteriorates. In a panic, he agrees to rent the soul of a Russian poet, at least until the play is over.
This brings us to the other end of the soul business, which is similar to drug trafficking, with a dank Russian warehouse as its epicenter. A mobster pays workers to suck out their souls to sell to the West. But then he gets the idea of selling American souls in Russia. His wife, a soap opera star, makes a list of famous actors whose soul she thinks would help her lack of talent -- Johnny Depp, Robert De Niro, etc.
Nina (Dina Korzun), the Russian mule who transports the souls overseas inside herself, steals Giamatti's soul from the storage site and passes it off as Al Pacino's. Giamatti decides he wants his own soul back, which leads to some international intrigue.
The movie is clever without ever finding anything interesting to say about the notion of souls being extracted and bartered on the international market like kidneys. Its tone exists entirely on the plot level, treating the events for what they are rather than what they imply.
Giamatti is a delight, as always, playing a kvetching, complaining portrait of his own persona. It must be an interesting and terrifying prospect for a character actor to expose himself on screen like this, even if it is a made-up person who happens to have his name and disposition.
While an interesting premise, "Cold Souls" left me pretty cold as a viewer.
DVD extras are pretty scarce. There's a 3-minute featurette about the construction of the "soul extractor" prop, and seven deleted scenes.
The first, of Giamatti displaying some (intentionally) awful acting during a rehearsal of his play, is so hilarious its excision from the film is mystifying. The other six, though, are of limited value.
"The Last Station" is one of those historical dramas that we instinctively want to like because it shows an important figure in a humanistic, fervorous light. Whether or not the events of the film accurately match their actual lives seems less important.
We'd like to think that the last months of the life of the great novelist Leo Tolstoy were filled with such passion, intrigue and romance. I tend to doubt it, but I like imagining so.
Helen Mirren is the star of this passion play as Tolstoy's wife Sofya. After nearly 50 years of marriage, she is resentful of the intrusions her husband's fame brings upon her and her children. Chief among these is Vladimir Chertkov (Paul Giamatti), the leader of a movement based upon Tolstoy's writings.
The exact philosophy of the Tolstoyans is a little murky. They are pacifists who eschew personal property, and Chertkov seems to want to take things further until all human vices -- including sex -- are forbidden. Chertkov says that love is the central tenet of this faith, but he doesn't hold much of it in his heart.
Chertkov wants Tolstoy to sign away the copyright to "War and Peace," "Anna Karenina" and his other works to the Tolstoyans to support the movement.
Sofya, though, views this as not only impractical -- what will her family live on? -- but as a form of marital abandonment. At one point she muses on how she helped her husband while writing "War and Peace," with not only copying duties but suggestions for the story, and it's clear she views her husband's accomplishments as the result of their partnership.
Chertkov recruits a young Tolstoyan, Valentin (James McAvoy), to work as Tolstoy's secretary and act as his spy. The lad is bowled over by the attention the famous author lavishes upon him, but he also finds himself drawn to Sofya, and develops sympathy for her plight.
A virgin, Valentin also finds romance with Masha, a free-love advocate living at the nearby Tolstoyan commune. Played by Kerry Condon, Masha throws an appraising eye at the nervous young man, framed by some gorgeous laugh crinkles that render him helpless.
Tolstoy himself is something of a tertiary character in his own story. Played by Christopher Plummer, the author is mischievous and mysterious. He tries to be modestly dismissive of the movement that has sprung up around him -- "I'm not a very good Tolstoyan myself," he chuckles to Valentin. But Sofya isn't far off the mark when she accuses him of being seduced by sycophants and flatterers.
Written and directed by Michael Hoffman from the novel by Jay Parini, "The Last Station" is an enjoyable if unlikely fictional version of Tolstoy's last days. It's an opportunity for actors to fling a lot of big emotions around, raging and cooing and reveling. (A stage version seems an obvious next step.)
I most liked the scenes between Plummer and Mirren. They paint a believable portrait of what happens to love over time. Tolstoy resents a wife who doesn't share his relatively newfound convictions -- he rages that "Our privilege revolts me!" -- while she struggles to claim any identity outside the shadow of the great writer.
Love may make the world go round, but sometimes even the deepest romance suffers dry rot.
