Every now and then, audiences and critics just plain get one wrong.
“Welcome to Marwen” was a complete box office bomb, grossing $10 million against a $39 budget. It currently has an abysmal 33 percent score on the Tomatometer -- about half that of the ludicrous Liam-Neeson-as-a-vengeful-snowplow-driver thriller, “Cold Pursuit.”
It came out for the Christmas rush and was promptly swallowed by “Aquaman,” “Mary Poppins Returns” and other blockbuster releases. Despite some big names being involved, including star Steve Carell and director/co-writer Robert Zemeckis, “Marwen” has essentially been memory-holed.
I urge you to go check it out on Blu-ray/DVD or streaming. It’s a wonderfully offbeat film -- funny and sad, grounded and giddy. It might be too weird for some people’s tastes, but for those who like unconventional storytelling it’s a true treat.
Carell plays Mark Hogancamp, an artist who was brutally beaten by a gang of men at bar because they thought he was gay. He isn’t, but Mark does like to wear ladies’ shoes, which apparently was enough reason. His injuries left him unable to draw, as well as wiping clean most of his memories prior to the attack.
His hobby-slash-obsession involves the creation of a model-scale fictional town in Belgium during the days of World War II. Mark populates the village with doll-side versions of himself and his female friends. Collectively they are freedom fighters taking on the evil Nazis.
These sequences are rendered in CGI with a cartoony, surreal quality that nonetheless packs a lot of emotional punch. Mark photographs the vignettes, which usually involve his character being tortured, as a sort of oddball personal therapy.
Now a major exhibition of Mark’s work is about to go on display, and he’s expected to testify in court for the sentencing of his attackers. He’s terribly anxious about both, as well as the arrival of an enticing new neighbor (Leslie Mann) across the street.
Yes, “Welcome to Marwen” may seem like a real head-scratcher at first. But it’s filled with so many wonderful things, especially Carell’s sensitive performance as a strange man with off-kilter impulses but a true heart.
Take a chance, and you might just find yourself bedazzled by this quirky jewel.
Bonus features are adqueate. They include deleted scenes and the following documentary shorts: “Marwen's Citizens,” “A Visionary Director,” “Building Marwen” and “Living Dolls.”
“Welcome to Marwen” is a strange and wonderful cinematic experience. It just may not be for you. Its combination of whimsy, tragedy and disturbing behavior isn’t going to be everyone’s bag.
I’m reminded of “Lars and the Real Girl,” which people seemed to take either as a quirky gem or utterly bewildering. If you’re in the former camp, my guess is you’ll take to “Marwen” as well.
Let’s just lay it out there: this is the tale of a damaged man who has built an elaborate replica of a fictional World War II Belgium village in his background, which he has populated with custom dolls that he arranges into various scenes and then photographs. Also, he likes wearing women’s stiletto heels.
If that description is off-putting to you, maybe toddle along your way now, without judgment. For the rest, we can get down to appreciating a film that’s decidedly off the beaten path.
It’s based on the true story of Mark Hogancamp (Steve Carell), an artist from upstate New York. He used to be an illustrator for comic books and stuff, but he was beaten to a pulp by five thugs after an encounter in a bar because they thought he was gay. Mark isn’t -- in fact he has a (possibly more than) healthy appreciation for the female form -- but he also has a thing for women’s high heels, and drunkenly let that slip.
As the story opens Mark is physically recovered from his injuries, but the mental and spiritual scars are still wide open. Nearly all of his memories prior to the attack have been wiped clean, and he can no longer draw or barely even write.
The dolls are clearly a cathartic exercise for him. Captain Hoagie, the heroic Army Air Service pilot who was shot down near Marwen, looks just like him. In his little vignettes, Hoagie is often captured and assaulted by Nazis, in a clear recreation of his own trauma. He even has a scar over one eye, as Mark does. But the Women of Marwen, an assortment of lovely resistance fighters, always arrive to save the day.
All of the Women are based on real people in his life. Caralala (Eiza Gonzalez) is a Latina based on a co-worker at the bar (which is also where he was assaulted). Anna (Gwendoline Christie) is the Russian caregiver who brings medicine and stern lectures. Roberta (Merritt Wever) runs the local hobby shop where he buys much of his materials. Suzette (Leslie Zemeckis) is an actress and showboat.
Oh, and there’s also an ancient resident witch named Deja Thoris (Diane Kruger) who flies and has magical powers. In Mark’s world, all the girls are attracted to Hoagie, but Deja has jealously laid claim to his affections, which he chastely refuses.
The doll sequences are marvelous, with Carell and company rendered into plastic-y shapes through CGI. We feel transported into another world, which has heft and authenticity despite the cartoonish quality.
A trio of events loom to turn Mark’s world upside down. A show of his artwork his about to open. The men who nearly killed him are due to be sentenced, and the lawyers want him there to confront them, which petrifies him. And a beautiful and kind woman, Nicol (Leslie Mann), moves in across the street and offers friendship. She is soon added to the Women.
This is perhaps Carell’s most sensitive performance to date. It’s odd to think that just a handful of years ago we regarded him as a goofy TV comedian. He plays Mark as a man who is wandering and lost, but knows he needs to keep moving forward. He will take many wrong turns, and we feel his pain as our own.
Director Robert Zemeckis, who co-wrote the script with Caroline Thompson, strikes a difficult balance in tone. We feel sympathy for Mark, but we’re sometimes a little scared by him, too. He’s childlike in his affections, and the women are careful to encourage his creativity without enforcing romantic feelings.
“Welcome to Marwen” is a story of trauma and redemption. We all find ways to cope with our pain. Some are healthy, some are not, some involve traditional therapy, and others take forms that we must invent for ourselves. Art, and movies, are a way.
I didn’t catch “Allied” when it came out in theaters for its all-too-brief run -- and I was hardly the only one who missed it. The film got lost in the shuffle of Oscar hopefuls stampeding into theaters in December and never found a large audience.
I finally caught up during my effort to see all the Academy Award nominees -- it got a well-deserved nod for costumes -- and was surprised to find a splendid war drama/romance.
Brad Pitt and Marion Cotillard play spies working for the British government during World War II. He’s Max, a Canadian, she’s Marianne, a French resistance legend. They meet up in North Africa, posing as a married couple, so they work hard at appearing familiar with each other -- a little too hard, it would seem.
Their assignment is to assassinate the German ambassador to Casablanca, so they know there’s a high likelihood one or both of them may not survive.
But they do, and get married and have a sweet baby girl, while Max takes an office job in London. But with the Normandy invasion coming up, his superiors start to suspect that Marianne may not be who she claims.
So he’s ordered to perform a “blue dye” operation on his wife. I’ll spare you the details, but the important part is that if she fails the test, it becomes his duty to execute Marianne -- personally. Failure to do so is considered treason.
Director Robert Zemeckis and screenwriter Steve Knight give us a gorgeous-looking movie filled with fraught sequences and keen emotional anguish. How much of Max and Marianne’s ardor is genuine, and how much is the result of circumstance and espionage intrigue? Does one’s patriotic obligation extend so far as to demand you kill the person you love?
Give “Allied” a look-see on home video, and you’ll find a well-made film that goes beyond typical spy stories.
Video extras are pretty decent, though you’ll have to shell out for the Blu-ray combo pack to get them, as the DVD version contains none.
They consist of 10 making-of featurettes: “Story of Allied,” “From Stages to the Sahara: The Production Design of Allied,” “Through the Lens: Directing with Robert Zemeckis,” “A Stitch in Time: The Costumes of Allied,” “‘Til Death Do Us Part: Max and Marianne,” “Guys and Gals: The Ensemble Cast,” “Lights, Pixels, ACTION! The Visual Effects of Allied,” “Behind the Wheel: The Vehicles of Allied,” “Locked and Loaded: The Weapons of Allied,” “That Swingin’ Sound: The Music of Allied.”
“Flight” is one of those
movies that keeps throwing you for loops. Some of the loops are
satisfying, while others just leave you discombobulated. The overall
experience is worthwhile, even though I often found myself having
difficulty getting emotionally invested in what was going on.
Denzel
Washington plays “Whip” Whitaker, a veteran airline pilot with a
substance abuse problem. He drinks like a fish, snorts cocaine and
carouses with a flight attendant mere hours before climbing into the
cockpit.
Once he’s in the captain’s chair, though, Whip is all
business – seasoned, cocksure and steady. In fact, when the plane
suffers a serious mechanical failure, he performs a virtually impossible
maneuver to land the plane, saving over 100 lives. He’s lauded as a
national hero.
But when an investigation reveals that he was
stoned at the time, Whip retreats into a cocoon of self-loathing.
Outwardly confident, he rebuffs attempts from the pilot union chief
(Bruce Greenwood) and their power lawyer (Don Cheadle) to assist. He
falls in with Nicole (Kelly Reilly), a heroin addict decades his junior,
as they help shore up each other’s crumbling identities.
Things
slowly build to a big government hearing to assign blame for the crash.
Will Whip be lauded or reviled? “Flight” is less about one man’s public
journey from hero to reprobate than his descent into himself.
Extra
features are on the slim side, especially if you opt for the DVD
edition. It comes with ... exactly nothing. No goodies at all.
Upgrade
to the Blu-ray, and you do get three featurettes on the making of the
film, including a blow-by-blow account of how the stomach-churning crash
sequence was created. There are also a few Q&As with the cast
and crew.
I'm always curious about how the reputations of a film rise and fall with the passing of years. When "Who Framed Roger Rabbit?" came out in 1988, it was heralded as a spectacular artistic and technical achievement. A quarter-century on, it's become a pretty forgotten piece of cinematic history.
I remember Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert raving about the stunning combination of live-action and animated characters on their eponymous television show -- how convincing the juxtaposition of cartoon characters and real actors. Similarly, in the New York Times Janet Maslin gushed, "Although this isn't the first time that cartoon characters have shared
the screen with live actors, it's the first time they've done it on
their own terms and make it look real."
Though I'm sure it looked fresh and exciting back in '88, the film hasn't aged well. The craftsmanship that seemed cutting edge 25 years ago looks positively hokey now. Considering the 'Disney Renaissance' that began the next year with "A Little Mermaid," or in contrast to Pixar's computer-animated films that started coming out just a few years later, "Roger Rabbit" registers now as little more than a minor way station on the way to grander achievements.
I think what seemed groundbreaking back then was that the humans seemed to actually interact with the denizens of Tunetown, the fictional Hollywood enclave where cartoon characters live (and seemingly spawn). So when roughhouse private detective Eddie Valiant (Bob Hoskins) grabs Roger in a crushing grip, his meaty fist actually seems to be enclosed around the rabbit's scrawny neck ... sort of, anyway.
Coming before green screens and CGI, the live actors plied their trade on a regular sound stage, with props and puppets standing in for the cartoon characters -- who would be painstakingly drawn in during 14 months of post-production. Robert Zemeckis directed the film, but Richard Williams supervised the animated sequences.
Supposedly, Charles Fleischer -- the voice of Roger -- even read his lines off-camera wearing a ridiculous rabbit get-up, so Hoskins and the actors would have something to relate to.
Roger himself is like an amalgam of different bits 'n' pieces from the golden age of animation -- a little Bugs Bunny, Goofy's fashion sense, Droopy the Dog's patch of red hair, Porky Pig's speech impediment and the hyperactive schizoid personality of the Road Runner on acid. The overall effect is entertaining, if a bit synthesized.
It's notable that Roger Rabbit, while appearing in a few more short films to capitalize on the movie's success, pretty much died off as a mainstay in the Disney oeuvre.
The other most notable toon character from the film is Jessica Rabbit, gifted with Kathleen's husky sex appeal and the body of a Barbie doll after spending a couple of years under the care of a Brazilian plastic surgeon. I personally never saw what the big deal was with her, even after the revelation of a few supposed frames of a naked Jessica that appear subliminally.
But then, "Who Framed Roger Rabbit?" was always a challenging mix of kiddie and adult material. The movie contains a few swear words, but was more controversial for risque bits like the little baby with the sexual mores of an aging lothario.
The story, based on a book by Gary K. Wolf, is pretty spare -- film noir meets Daffy Duck.
The head of the biggest cartoon studio is killed, with Roger fingered for the crime. Evil Judge Doom is the heavy, working to suppress the mogul's will leaving Toontown to the toons, so he can instead destroy the city's mass transit system and substitute a freeway instead. Eddie, who has an abiding hatred of toons after one killed his brother, is roped into helping Roger out.
Despite the simplicity of the plot, the film contains a number of clever conceits. The first is the notion that cartoon characters are not imaginary creations but sentient beings, who live to act screwy and make people laugh. Thus, Bugs and Mickey Mouse and a thousand other iconic characters are really actors who star in cartoons, suffering pratfalls and hammer squishings and other hilarious hijinks since they're more or less indestructible.
Sounds like they've got a lousy union.
(Steven Spielberg was reportedly key in convincing so many of the entities that owned the rights to these characters to let them appear in cameos.)
Doom has found a way to permanently destroy toons, melting them in his horrible acidic Dip. It's unclear exactly what the Judge's judicial duties actually consist of, since he mostly just rides around with his weasel henchmen putting the squeeze on toons and any humans who help them out.
It was one of Christopher Lloyd's most enjoyable roles, during a decade when he occuppied a rarefied perch as mainstream filmdom's most versatile character actor. His off-kilter line readings and creepy/funny screen presence made Judge Doom in many ways more enduring the Roger Rabbit.
"Who Framed Roger Rabbit?" is still a good movie, though seen today it clearly does not belong among the animation giants that came after, nor among the best comedies of that era. Mostly, it's a confectionery treat of live-action and cartoons mashed together in a way that's fun, if not entirely convincing.
In his long career Denzel Washington has played a lot of good guys, and a few notable bad ones, but I'm not sure if he's ever played a guy like the one in "Flight."
The story is about a pilot who saves a jet full of passengers when his plane suffers a major malfunction. But in the days that come after the crash, questions arise that throw his heroism, and even his entire self-conception, into chaos.
William "Whip" Whitaker is a puzzle, a mystery wrapped in a cocoon of bravado and patter. He's been fooling everyone else for so long that he's even convinced himself that he fits his role to a T: that of the savvy, calm, cool and collected airline pilot. The image he projects is of a former Navy fighter pilot hot dog turned safe and seasoned commercial captain of the airwaves.
But Whip's got a secret. He drinks. A lot. Does a little coke, too, to bring himself up after the buckets of booze have worn him down. But once he's in the pilot's seat, he reasons, he's all business.
Except that one fateful day something on the plane breaks, and Whip and his green co-pilot (Brian Geraghty) are forced to undertake a risky crash-landing maneuver. The upshot: a lot of people are hurt, but only six out of 102 are killed. People are calling it a miracle. The media is buzzing. In simulated recreations, no other pilot is able to replicate Whip's daring deed.
And yet, the blood tests say he was legally drunk when he did this.
From there, the story takes on an unsteady rhythm, as the narrative meanders here and pools there. The original script by John Gatins goes in directions we don't expect; some of them pay off, and others don't.
Whip is confronted by federal investigators, as well as the friendly head of the pilot's union (Bruce Greenwood) and the slick lawyer they've retained (Don Cheadle). Their job, they say, is to protect Whip. But the odds are dire -- he could end up lauded as a hero, another Sully Sullenberger, or put in jail forever.
His first reaction is like the rest of his life up to now: bluster. No one else could have landed that plan and saved those lives like I did, he proclaims. To him it makes no difference if he was legally impaired at the time, since obviously the booze and drugs didn't affect him enough to prevent him from amazing actions.
But slowly Whip descends into a torpor, hiding out at his grandfather's abandoned farm, swilling astonishing amounts of liquor. We get the sense we're seeing the real man Whip hides from the world, one who's self-pitying, arrogant and not a little pathetic.
In the hospital he meets Nicole (Kelly Reilly), a woman who overdosed on heroin. Her life is falling apart in much the same way as Whip's. Seeing a kindred soul in need, he gives her a place to stay when her money runs out. It's an unspoken but mutually understood arrangement that she will give herself physically to him as a reward.
Things build, slowly, to the big hearing before the National Transportation Safety Board. Will Whip straighten himself up in time to put on a convincing show? Can his lawyer get the toxicology report thrown out?
As it turns out, the movie is not really about these things. Rather, it's an exploration of a man's fragile psyche, and if he can recognize the failings underneath his brave veneer of competence.
This is the first live-action movie Robert Zemeckis has directed since 2000's "Cast Away," after an often regrettable decade exploring motion-capture animation. In many ways "Flight" is a return to familiar ground. Instead of being physically isolated, Whip is marooned emotionally. The trick to getting out of his trap is peering deep into his own self-reflection.
It's an engaging picture, and not for a moment was I ever bored. But I never quite got viscerally hooked into Whip's dilemma, or felt like we ever get to really know him. As hard as it is for him to reach out for help, we never quite get a grip on him.
"A Christmas Carol" is a technological marvel, an animated film that is absolutely breathtaking in its attention to detail, and in the depth and beauty of its images. Unfortunately, it also has little reason for existing beyond these technical aspects.
Do audiences really need an umpteenth cinematic version of Charles Dickens' classic story? This is, after all, a franchise that has been translated dozens of times on film and television, including multiple animated editions.
Heck, the Muppets, Mickey Mouse, Sesame Street, Flintstones, Mr. Magoo and even Barbie have tackled Dickens' novella.
Robert Zemeckis, the master filmmaker behind "Forrest Gump" and "Back to the Future," adds nothing beyond fancy flourishes to the morality tale about a miser who learns the value of life, and thereby the true meaning of Christmas.
A few years ago, Zemeckis famously swore off live-action films to concentrate on photo-realistic computer-generated animation. His first two efforts, "The Polar Express" and "Beowulf," were well-intentioned and often mesmerizing, but also contained bouts of silliness (think Angelina Jolie with a tail).
"Christmas Carol" doubles down on the silly, with the hyper Jim Carrey providing the voices (and motions) of Ebenezer Scrooge and all the ghosts.
And Zemeckis adds a heavy dollop of action sequences designed to make the movie more commercially viable to audiences with children.
It's very easy to say Charles Dickens might have dreamed up scenes where Ebenezer Scrooge is shot halfway to the moon on a rocket, or shrunk down to the size of a mouse and chased by a team of hellfire steeds, if only he had been alive during a time when such depictions were possible. It's also a cop-out.
"Scrooged" from 1988 already ably translated "Carol" to a modern setting, and used special effects to liven up the ghosts of Christmas Past, Present and Future. Zemeckis retains the grubby antique 19th-century setting but uses cutting-edge animation and 3-D technology to achieve it.
The result is stale but annoyingly flashy, like musty architecture with ill-placed modern gilding.
It's also odd that Zemeckis retained a lot of the 1843-era stilted English, such as Scrooge's pronouncement upon seeing his childhood home, "I was bred here."
Now, to the ghosts. Conceptually, they're 1-for-3.
The Ghost of Christmas Present is depicted as a giant, bearded, laughing man, a Dionysian figure (who closely resembles the book's original drawing). The scene where the ghost ages and meets his demise -- since he lives in the present, his lifespan lasts only a day -- is both thrilling and creepy. (Although his strange pronouncement about men of the cloth left the audience scratching its collective head.)
The Ghost of Christmas Past, though, is a chirpy-voiced floating ball of flame. In my mind, I instantly dubbed, and dismissed, him as "Match-head." Ghost of Christmas Future is merely an inky wraith seen only in the shadows.
The supporting performances are a nice mix -- I particularly liked Gary Oldman as Scrooge's long-suffering clerk Bob Cratchit, whom he gives a shy sort of grace. (Oldman also plays Jacob Marley and Tiny Tim.)
In the end, I'm not really sure who this new version of "A Christmas Carol" is for. Great-looking but uninspired, it's a shiny new toy that can only do old tricks.
Yes, I know "Contact" came out in 1997, and a movie a mere dozen years old could not possibly be categorized as a classic. But the name of the column is "Reeling Backward," and I'm the one writing it, so I get to decide how far backward we reel. In this case, not so much. Still, I think enough time has passed to offer a little perspective on this film.
"Contact" was considered a major disappointment at the time, but I really like the movie. It's based on the Carl Sagan novel about mankind's first contact with alien intelligence. Jodie Foster plays a willful scientist who first detects the signal, and is eventually selected to be the one transported halfway across the universe to meet them.
"Contact" has become a touchstone in pop culture references -- and not in a good way. There's a segment of "Family Guy" where Stewie has a lengthy exchange with Matthew McConaughey, where he insults McConaughey's acting skills in general and his role in "Contact" in particular. He alleges that McConaughey's character has no purpose for being in the film. In his best surfer-Texas-dudespeak, McConaughey agrees, and says the producers just wanted a good-looking guy to balance out Jodie Foster and all the science-y stuff.
Much ridicule has also been made of a major plot point in the film where the huge machine that has been built at the direction of the alien message is blown up by religious extremists, and it's revealed that a second identical machine has been secretly built. I admit it does seem a little deux ex machina, but don't blame director Robert Zemeckis and his screenwriters -- it's right there in Carl Sagan's book. In fact, in the book a total of three machines are built. The American one gets destroyed, the Russian one is plagued by construction problems, and the Japanese one is built at the behest of S.R. Hadden (John Hurt), a renegade billionaire who likes to thumb his nose at the powers that be.
I recently re-read Sagan's novel, and I have to say that as imaginative as I think it is, the TV astronomer was a better scientist than he was a storyteller. The book is dense with technical jargon, and often seems more interested in the hows and wherefores of inter-galactic communication and transportation than the implications of it, and certainly the visceral impact.
This is a rare case where the movie is better than the book.
Foster's character, Ellie Arroway, is much feistier and more confrontational than her literary counterpart. Again, this makes sense -- a movie protagonist can't be passive. Audiences want to see the heroine stand up for herself.
There's also much more made of Arroway's personal ambitions in the film version. There's a great scene where she is attending the presidential news conference announcing the reception of the message from another planet, and she is shunted aside for David Drumlin, a bureaucratic nemesis who had in fact been trying to shut down Arroway's project on the search for extra-terrestrial intelligence (SETI). For the movie, it makes sense -- conflict is the primary source of drama in most movies. Watch almost any serious film, and some heads are going to be butted.
The movie diverges from the book in ways small and large. The McConaughey character, Palmer Joss, is a religious figure whose print role is quite different. He's heard but not seen to a much greater degree -- and he certainly isn't a romantic partner for Arroway. There's some hint of a connection, but it's more intellectual/philosophical than sexual. She has another boyfriend in the form of the presidential science advisor, which peters out as the machine project nears culmination.
One of the biggest changes is that Arroway is the only person selected to enter the Machine, as it's known, for whatever purpose the aliens have intended for it. But in the book, there are five travelers, representing a geographically and ethnically diverse stratum of humanity. I can see why Zemeckis and his writers went this way -- you'd have to essentially introduce four more important characters right as the movie was entering its third act, which violates some kind of Hollywood dictum or something.
It would also weaken the film's resolution, in which Arroway is held up as a hoaxer. She travels for 18 hours through a series of wormholes, and communicates with a leader of the alien consortium who has taken on the form of her long-dead father. But she's returned at the exact moment she left, so to the observers on the ground nothing happened. There's a nefarious politician, played by James Woods, who leads the inquisition against Arroway, portraying her as an unwitting dupe of the trickster Hadden. Now, it's easy to convince the world that one person had a hallucination, but nearly impossible to make it stick when five people have the same experience.
The one major problem I have with the film, and the book, is the truncated meeting with the aliens. In both cases, the father figure (played by David Morse in the movie) keeps pressing Arroway for time, saying she has to return soon. Basically, she shows up on this alien world, after the nations of earth have spent trillions of dollars building the machine(s), and the essence of their communication is: "Hey. Nice to meetcha. Gotta go now." When Arroway presses him why she can't stay and ask more questions, the answer is that "This is how it's always been done." That's a frustrating non-answer, whether you're reading a book or watching a movie.
But despite its public reception, I feel "Contact" remains one of the best cinematic representations of human interaction with extra-terrestrial life. After all, in a space as vast as our universe, contact is more likely to happen through electronic messages than a flying saucer touching down, a hatch popping open and some green men emerging. The "War of the Worlds" version may sell more tickets, but "Contact" aims a little higher.
