WILD, WILD PLANET (1965)
and PLANET OF THE VAMPIRES (1965)
There’s something irresistible about low-budget sci-fi movies. How can you not smile at a cast of intensely serious characters surrounded by “special effects” that look as if they were purchased at the local toy store? These two dubbed Italian productions also offer a preview of the costumes, sets and character interaction that became the staples of “Star Trek,” which debuted the following year. The influences are undeniable.
“Wild, Wild Planet” is the loopier of the two, a strong contender for the worst sci-fi film of all time. It takes the entire film before space station commander (played by the lone U.S. actor Tony Russell) figures out the connection between a rash of missing people on the base planet (it looks like Earth but is never identified) and Mr. Nurmi, the scientist running organ transplanting experiments. This madman (Massimo Serato) has gone to the effort of creating a collection of odd-looking bald men, outfitted in too small fedoras and oversized trench coats that hide a smaller, second set of arms, to do the kidnapping. They approach their victims with an attractive, brain-washed girl at their side (she does the talking) and then quickly sweep the target under the trench coat, injecting them with the potion that shrinks them to about a foot high. The why of all this is left to the imagination.
More humorous are the shots of the space station, which looks like the plastic space set I played with when I was 10, and the transportation device, which whirls around the space station over and over again no matter where it’s going.
Inside the station, there are the usual boards of unmarked flashing lights, sliding panels and even a nightclub, a sort of international NASA a Go-Go. And then there’s the very off-Broadway dance troupe, which seems to be a popular entertainment. Apparently, television has been eliminated in this version of the future.
More visually interesting and thoughtful despite its campy title, “Planet of the Vampires” follows two space ships, exploring under the flag of a united solar system group, as they crash land on a mysterious planet. After landing, the crew awakes with the powerful desire to kill each other, but return to normal after being roused from their semi-conscious state. While the crew led by Captain Markary (American TV veteran Barry Sullivan) survives the hypnotic assault, they find a few dead crew members from their sister ship while the rest are nowhere to be found. Not unlike “Invasion of the Body Snatchers,” it soon becomes clear that some life form is taking over the dead bodies and won’t stop until every Earthling is a vampire/zombie.
Artfully directed by Maria Bava (who later did the cult classic “Dr. Goodfoot and the Girl Bombs”) and shot in a popish color scheme by Antonio Rinaldi, “Planet of the Vampires” is not unlike an episode of “Star Trek” and also shares plot similarities to the 1979 sci-fi classic “Alien.” If it wasn’t for the bizarre space suits and the diverting voice dubbings, this film might be remembered as an important link between the preachy sci-fi morality tales of the 1950s and the great leap forward in Stanley Kubrick’s “2001: A Space Odyssey” (1968).
The black leather outfits----zipped up to the chin and featuring high, flaring collars, and topped with a skull cap----make the women look like Catwoman and the men leaders of some medieval crusade. As if battling an alien life form isn’t hard enough, doing it in these outfits should have been a union violation.
Between the Dick Tracy video phones and the all-important meteor rejecter, the film displays, with no fanfare, something nearly unseen in most movies of the era: men and women working side-by-side as equals. While mainstream films were still portraying career women as either wasting time before they find the right man or a complete aberration, once movies went into space, women were accepted as equal parts of the team, just as smart and capable as the men. For filmmakers, it was the only way to get a female presence in these space-bound movies, but it also made a (unintended?) pro-feminist statement.
In “Planet of the Vampires,” the female crew members scream more often than the men, but their professional skills and knowledge are never questioned.
The film, despite its many flaws, most due to its miniscule budget, stands with the best of the 1950 cycle of sci-fi pictures, and if only for its ominous ending, is worth seeking out. As for “Wild, Wild Planet,” with its miniaturized humans and four-armed killers, only those who savor bad cinema will truly appreciate it.
THE GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO (2010)
and THE GIRL WHO PLAYED WITH FIRE (2010)
In the first two adaptations of the late Swedish writer Stieg Larsson’s mystery trilogy Noomi Rapace inhabits “The Girl” with a fearless intensity that few actresses could match. Lisbeth Salander is an expert computer hacker with a troubled past who has the survival instincts of a wild animal trapped in a corner. As her sexually abusive court-appointed conservator discovers, she knows how to enact punishing revenge.
In “Dragon Tattoo,” she takes a sympathetic interest in Mikael Blomkvist (Michael Nyqvist), an investigative journalist who is hired by a retired industrialist to unlock the unexplained disappearance of his niece nearly 30 years ago. Eventually Lisbeth agrees to work with him as he unravels a trail of murders that began in the 1940s and may involve Nazi sympathizers, religious cultists and family secrets. Because so much of the investigation involves studying old photographs and digging into dusty company records, these two strong characters are essential to maintaining interest.
The film is as much about their past and how they bond during the investigation as it is about the solving of the mystery. Lisbeth, a lean, dark bundle of nerves, trusts no one and is always ready to bolt if anyone treads too close to her messy past, while Blomkvist is too trusting, even after being tricked into committing libel.
Director Niels Arden Oplev and his screenwriters Rasmus Heisterberg and Nikolaj Arcel have taken a dense, overflowing plot (reportedly the novel is even more complex) and distilled it into a fast-paced two and a half hour movie in which the plot turns never seem forced or unrealistic. There’s no shortage of violent, disturbing sequences in this film, but as guided by actors Rapace and Nyqvist, it never feels exploitive or over-the-top.
“Fire” finds the anti-social Lisbeth wanted on double murder charges, when one of Blomkvist’s writers, working on a story about the Eastern European sex trade, is killed by the same gun used to end the life of Lisbeth’s repulsive conservator. Bodies start to pile up as a blond killing machine named Niedermann (Micke Spreitz) takes out anyone keeping him from finding Lisbeth.
In this film, Blomkvist is one step behind Lisbeth, as he reinterprets clues left to incriminate her while attempting to intercept her before the bad guys do.
A new director (Daniel Alfredson) and screenwriter (Jonas Frykberg) manage to maintain the style and look of the first adventure while filling in the details that were left ambiguous in “Dragon.”
Maybe because of the length (each are nearly 2 ½ hours) and the episodical nature of the multi-character stories, they seems more like well-made television than feature films, but that doesn’t diminish the edge-of-your-seat drama and superbly drawn characters.
While “Fire” feels a bit more conventional than “Tattoo,” Rapace’s Lisbeth remains one of those rare movie characters whose intriguing back story and emotional resolve make her unforgettable. The final chapter, “The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest,” is due in October.
S.O.B. (1981)
In the past three decades only Robert Altman’s “The Player” (1992) has matched this Blake Edwards’ comedy in capturing the surreal insanity of the movie business. The good news is that “S.O.B,” a free-wheeling, darkly cynical screwball, remains both hilarious and insightful a generation later.
The film within the film is a sweet-natured musical starring Sally Miles (Julie Andrews) and directed by her husband (Richard Mulligan) called “Night Wind,” which bombs in spectacular fashion. The failure sends the self-obsessed director into a suicidal funk and the equally egotistical star into career damage control.
Felix’s failed attempts to end his life---driving through his garage wall and into the Pacific Ocean below his Malibu home---brings three old friends to his side: pessimistic studio executive Culley (William Holden), pill-dispensing Dr. Irving Finegarten (Robert Preston) and his simpering agent Coogan (Robert Webber). While the frenetic story follows the director’s battle with the surly, heartless studio chief (Robert Vaughn) to reclaim control of the film and rework it into an erotic spectacular, the heart of “S.O.B.” is the Greek chorus of Holden, Preston and Webber ruminating on the industry and the disturbing priorities of the film community.
This was Holden’s final performance and a worthy curtain call for this versatile, charismatic star. He died just months after the release of the film when, drunk, he fell and cut his head in his home. For Preston, whose star had waned since his popular turn as “The Music Man” (1962), “S.O.B” led to one of his best roles, as the transvestite nightclub performer in “Victor/Victoria” (1982), also directed by Edwards. It earned Preston an Oscar nomination.
Webber, one of the busiest supporting players of the 1960s and ‘70s, usually played fast-talking, corrupt businessmen, which makes his over-the-top childish agent even funnier. As the three of them drink to their pal, Webber’s Coogan puts Hollywood tradition in perspective: “Standard Operational Bullshit. They kill the poor, sweet SOB and then they give him a sendoff like he’s some kind of saint.”
But “S.O.B.” is overflowing with these types of perfectly measured Hollywood caricatures, including Vaughn, Larry Hagman as a studio yes-man, Loretta Swit as an obnoxious gossip columnist, Larry Storch as a industry-savvy spiritual guru, Stuart Margolin as the ultimate sycophant who as the personal assistant to Sally really wants to be a producer, and Andrews as the bitchy prima donna, essentially satirizing her own squeaky clean imagine. (The Edwards-Andrews clunky 1970 musical “Darling Lili” became one of the signature death-knells of the studio era.)
“S.O.B.” was the second in a trio of hit comedies for Edwards, breaking his run of “Pink Panther” retreads. His mid-career surge began with “10” (1979), which made Dudley Moore a star and Bo Derek an icon, and ended with “Victor/Victoria” (1982), a thoroughly entertaining movie with Andrews as a stage performer pretending to be a man so she can pretend to be a woman on stage. The 88-year-old writer-director hasn’t made a film since his last stab at “Panther” magic with Italian goofball Roberto Benigni as the sleuth in “Son of Pink Panther” (1993).
THE KIDS ARE ALL RIGHT (2010)
It’s so rare to see a sophisticated, adult comic drama from Hollywood that it’s tempting to overlook its faults and over-praise it. That seems to be what happened with this film, which suffers from a flabby, unfocused script that isn’t helped by director Lisa Cholodenko’s inability to create any sense of narrative flow.
Cholodenko, as she showed in the equally inconsistenant “High Art” (1998) and “Laurel Canyon” (2002), is more than capable of creating memorable scenes and emotionally powerful acting moments, but falls short in pulling the bits and pieces together into a cohesive narrative.
That said, there is plenty to enjoy and appreciate about “The Kids Are All Right.” The set-up is packed with possibilities.
Nic (Annette Bening), a controlling wife-mother-surgeon is sent spinning into a midlife crisis when her two teenage children with her longtime lesbian partner, Jules (Julianne Moore), seek out the man who donated the sperm used to create them. When he turns out to be an organic-restaurant owner who everyone but Nic immediately likes it just increases her anxiety.
Nic and Jules are already going through a bit of a rough patch and things in the bedroom aren’t perfect when Paul (a jittery, talkative Mark Ruffalo) is brought into their world and upsets a teetering apple basket.
Unfortunately, the plot goes in a dozen different directions at once as Paul sincerely attempts to get to know his biological offspring, Jules agrees to landscape Paul’s backyard and the teens (Josh Hutcherson and Mia Wasikowska) try to establish their own personas. All of these threads feel like retreads from less serious films.
The most off-putting aspect of the screenplay involves Jules’ time spent at Paul’s home, working on his backyard. She becomes less likeable, less sympathetic as her relationship with Paul deepens, especially in her treatment of the Latino worker she’s hired to help her.
It was never clear if I should be laughing at Jules’ irresponsible and flaky approach to life or questioning her loyalty to her partner and family.
Yet Bening’s performance as Nic is worth the price of admission. Even as Cholodenko and co-screenwriter Stuart Blumberg are painting her as a party-pooper who is overly fearful of outside influence on her family, Nic is facing a future of an empty nest and a less-than-committed partner. Bening does an impressive job of capturing both her real fears and her imagined ones.
Her performance culminates memorably during a dinner at Paul’s house. Things are a bit tense and everyone is waiting for Nic is lash out when she comments on his record collection. She’s impressed that he’s a fan of Joni Mitchell, joking that she meets so few straight men who like the singer-songwriter. Then, together, she and Paul spontaneously sing Mitchell’s sad, soulful “Blue.” Bening, who has given her fair share of fine performances in a career than includes a best actress Oscar for “American Beauty” (1999), has never created such a true and telling moment on screen. In this simple celebration of a great songwriter, Bening shows her age, her longing for the past, her inner trepidations about the future and her fragile emotions coloring her relationship with Jules.
Few films could sustain that kind of beautifully realized open window to hard realities, but this picture doesn’t come close. Instead, Cholodenko falls back on easy bromides, and, just like the cookie-cutter Hollywood movies she is trying so hard to distance this film from, puts the blame for problems on the outside intruder rather than facing the enemy within.
THE SCALPHUNTERS (1968)
This unusual Western, Sidney Pollack’s third feature, expertly mixes comedy, action, social commentary and plenty of scene-chewing acting. Leading the charge is Burt Lancaster as Joe Bass, a quick-witted, cock-sure fur trader who forms an uneasy bound with Joseph Lee, a runaway slave played by Ossie Davis.
Bass heads after a gang of Indian scalphunters (apparently, a money-making endeavor) after they ambush a party of warriors who had just robbed Bass of his pelts. The scalphunters are led by Howie (Telly Savalas), a ruthless killer and racist whose leadership is continually undercut by his imperious wife Katie (a perfectly cast Shelley Winters). It’s a testimony to Pollack and screenwriter William W. Norton that they are able to milk so much comedy out the Savalas-Winters relationship, especially after they capture Joseph Lee and he plays them off one another, considering the serious issues being addressed.
But the secret weapon of this picture is Lancaster, who for me is the acting version of comfort food. Just watching this nimble, energetic performance at work, whether he’s jumping from rock to rock as he avoids gunfire or reacting with his darting eyes and toothy grin to a putdown from Joseph Lee is a reminder of what a larger-than-life screen persona brings to the cinema.
The film is loaded---maybe overloaded----with contemporary issues about the relationship between European and Native Americans and the ever-changing status of blacks, all played out on the rocky, desert foothills of Texas.
Davis’ dances the fine line between playing the obedient “Negro” and outmaneuvering the thick-headed whites. Ironically, at the height of the civil rights movement, Hollywood did a better job of dealing with the issue of race and the country’s racism than they do now. In large part, that’s a reflection of an era in which directors and writers had unprecedented freedom to address issues they felt strong about. Today, the central issue is how to make the film more audience friendly.
The next year, Pollack helmed his breakthrough film, the Depression-era drama “They Shoot Horses, Don’t They,” starting a two-decade run that included the popular romance “The Way We Were” (1973), the comic masterpiece “Tootsie” and the Oscar-winning “Out of Africa” (1985).
While there are few obvious similarities between “The Scalphunters” and “Tootsie”---except the presence of Dabney Coleman in the cast---they were the director’s only comedies and, in both, Pollack found a way to deal with serious issues between the laughs.
THE EXTRA MAN (2010)
Few would have predicted that Kevin Kline’s days as a comic star would end with “In & Out” (1997), a finely measured portrayal of a man who, days away from his wedding, is forced to confront his sexuality.
During the late ‘80s and ‘90s, Kline was the subtle, smart alternative to Steve Martin and Robin Williams, with memorable comic turns in “A Fish Called Wanda” (1988), “Soapdish” (1991) and “Dave” (1993).
Lately, he’s turned cloyingly serious with “Life as a House” (2001) and “De-Lovely” (2004), as a dreary Cole Porter, misfired in a goofy role in “A Prairie Home Companion” (2006) and, a true low, co-starred with Martin in a 2006 “Pink Panther” remake.
“The Extra Man” is a return to character-based comedy, but it didn’t last long in theaters and Kline’s role is more of an over-written, one-note supporting part. He plays Henry Harrison, a professional curmudgeon who scratches out a living by escorting well-to-do elderly women to dinners and openings around Manhattan.
It’s one of those characters who at first seems amusingly quirky but quickly turns irritating and, eventually, tiresome.
His co-star is the naturally quirky Paul Dano (“The Good Heart” and “There Will Be Blood”), playing a fired English professor who moves to New York City to become a novelist and, for no good reason, agrees to rent a tiny little room from Henry. Dano’s Louis spends his time agonizing over his attraction to a co-worker (a stiff, rather dull Katie Holmes) and his secret desire to become a transvestite, but he’s so confused he fails to commit to either.
Writer-directors Shari Springer Berman and Robert Pulcini (working from a novel by Jonathan Ames) have loaded the film with so many oddball characters----there’s also John C. Reilly playing a very hairy neighbor who speaking with a Mickey Mouse-like voice----that they just cancel each other out.
The best scenes in the picture are those featuring Marian Seldes, one of Kline’s elderly “dates” who struggles to stay awake as a strange collection of men vie for her attention. Otherwise, this menagerie of hopeless, pitiful characters ends up being more tragic than funny.
CORRECTION: In last month’s review of “Flame & Citron,” I incorrectly placed the World War II actioner in Amsterdam. The film is set in and around the Denmark capital, Copenhagen.
Thursday, September 2, 2010
Tuesday, August 3, 2010
July 2010
INCEPTION (2010)
In Christopher Nolan’s latest cerebral action picture, the characters never stop explaining the numerous metaphysical miracles the film presents. Whether they are in a dream, constructing a future dream or planning a dream caper, the talk is all about the process. Unlike most sci-fi thrillers, where the setup is established and then the characters experience the adventure, this film is all about making the audience buy into the setup---if and when and why they’re in a dream and whose dream it is and why the dream must end soon and how they’re going to escape the dream. I didn’t mind being confused, but all the talking about it drove me nuts.
By the final act, or should I say dream, set in a Bond film-like snow-bound complex, I was so worn down by all the dialogue required to make a semblance of sense out of this plot that I slipped into a dream myself. Seriously. I’m not making this up. I nodded off for just a few seconds and then awoke remembering being in a Las Vegas casino. The “Inception” characters are not that lucky.
These dreams turn out to be way too much like a typical Hollywood action film. In fact, these really aren’t dreams in the way we’ve been trained to experience them in movies (see Hitchcock, Bergman, David Lynch for more realistic cinematic dreaming), where strange characters say strange things and logic rarely makes an appearance. In this film, the word “dream” is used as an excuse to play around with the laws of gravity and relativity.
An especially intense and anguished Leonardo DiCaprio plays Dom Cobb, an extractor who specializes in slipping into other’s dreams and stealing secrets from their subconscious. Taking on “one last job”---as all sincere cinematic criminals must do---with a promise that he’ll be reunited with his young children in the U.S., Cobb agrees to plant the idea in the mind of the heir to an energy conglomerate (Cillian Murphy) that he should break up the firm, a move that will benefit his competitor (Ken Watanabe). Immediately, for better or worse, the film puts the viewer in the position of rooting for the success of an operation designed to enrich a greedy corporation.
Cobb and his scientific team lay out a complex plot that includes deceptive play acting at three levels of dreaming, all taking place simultaneously while they and the target take a private jet on an intercontinental flight.
I never quite understood, despite lengthy explanations by Cobb and trusted sidekick Arthur (Joseph Gordon-Levitt), how the three different dream states were connected or who was picking the environment for these alternative realities. It also turns out that these dream weavers are equally skilled at handling weapons. Apparently, in this world of dream invaders, there are also dream security teams. The lesson to be learned is that you should never go to sleep without your team in place and a pistol in your belt.
To appreciate this film, I’d advise forgetting about trying to make sense of it and just enjoy the ride, letting the entire experience wash over you. Not that I could do that. Even putting the pesky details aside, you’re still stuck with the unending discussions of what the characters can and cannot do while in a dream. And, unlike most dream experiences, not a single long-forgotten high school classmate shows up.
The most promising plotline of the film involves Cobb’s late wife (played by the always interesting Marion Cotillard), who keeps popping up in the most inopportune times in these dreams. The movie is most alive when Cobb and his wife are engaging one another, a love-hate relationship that brings out the best in the actors. Their once and current relationship keeps “Inception” from being “Mission: Impossible, Part IV.”
Ellen Page, a 2007 Oscar nominee for “Juno,” as the dream architect with a very free-flowing imagination and Gordon-Levitt, best known for last year’s “(500) Days of Summer,” have the cool, unflappable attitudes down pat but never get a chance to evolve into individuals. The two rival businessmen turn out to be the most interesting characters in the picture, slyly played by Watanabe, who earned an Oscar nomination for “The Last Samurai” (2003), and Murphy, who was a bad guy in Nolan’s “Batman Begins” (2005).
Much like his Teddy Daniels in “Shelter Island,” DiCaprio’s Cobb is a hopeless, drifting soul whose life has lost its meaning after the death of his wife. Also in both films, the characters must emerge from dream-like states to gain any semblance of a normal life. DiCaprio seems to be trying too hard in both pictures, never coming down to earth as he did so well in “Blood Diamond” and “The Departed.”
Writer-director Nolan, who became Warner Bros. favorite son after megahits “Batman Begins” and “The Dark Knight” (2008), creates some mesmerizing, one-of-a-kind visual in “Inception,” most of which can be seen in the trailer. Yet he never made me care enough about his dream world that I wanted to figure it out. When the good guys and the bad guys are indistinguishable, it’s hard to work up much emotional investment in the story. And when the rules of the game are impossible to follow, who wins or loses hardly seems to matter.
FLAME & CITRON (2009)
There’s been a ton of World War II resistance movies in the past decade, but not many feature a story as compelling or well told as the one in this Danish picture. Based on the experiences of a pair of real heroes, the film chronicles the efforts of a young hotshot assassin nicknamed Flame and his equally impassioned partner, a crumpled, unassuming Citron to disrupt the Nazi occupation of Denmark.
Thure Lindhardt as Flame and Mads Mikkelsen (the bad guy in “Casino Royale”) as Citron draw you into this story immediate as they seek out Danish collaborators and the occasional German. Ironically, the head of their resistance cell, the imperious Winther (Perer Mygind) keeps telling them to not kill Nazis, especially Hoffmann, the region’s Gestapo chief superbly portrayed by Christian Berkel (he played the barkeep in the brilliant tavern scene in “Inglorious Basterds”). But the moral clarity becomes much grayer as who and why they are killing changes and Flame starts getting conflicting information from a mysterious older woman (Stine Stengade) he takes up with.
Director Ole Christian Madsen, who co-wrote the film with Lars Andersen, never lets the action or the intrigue flag and constantly slips in foreshadowing clues as to the shifting moral dilemmas and confusing loyalties these passionate fighters face. Turns out, the politics of the resistance can be just as misguided and ambivalent as those of the enemy. In that way, and the manner in which he uses its locale (Copenhagen), it reminded me of “The Third Man” and how inseparable that film is from Vienna.
But even if you’re not into WWII actioners, the portrait of these two brave men, who sacrifice their personal lives and any hope of escaping, to make the Nazi occupation as unpleasant as possible for the Germans and their collaborators, is not to be missed. These complex, strong-willed nationalists are memorably brought to life by great performances by Lindhardt and Mikkelsen. “Flame & Citron” takes an old genre and breathes new life into it, bringing to the screen two of the most interesting resistance fighters of the war.
TOY STORY 3 (2010)
I’ve been thoroughly disappointed by so many acclaimed, highly recommended (friends with children clearly can’t be trusted) animated pictures in the past 10 years that I held out little hope for the latest Pixar “masterpiece.” My thinking was: Shouldn’t part threes of animated features go directly to DVD? Beyond appreciating the clever characters of the original, I hadn’t though much of the first two “Toy Story” films.
Yet right from the opening sequence, there was something different about Part 3. In a flashback fantasy, the imagination of a young Andy is working at full tilt, as he utilizes all his toys to provide a wondrous remembrance of childhood playtime. (Not to mention an appearance by the fondly remembered Troll dolls from the 1960s).
But those happy days for Andy’s classic toy collection are long in the past. Now, as he prepares for college, the toys sit idle in a toy chest soon to be abandoned. On the way to the attic, the garbage bag filled with the toys (save for Andy’s favorite, Woody) nearly lands in the garbage and ends up as donations to the Sunnyside Daycare Center.
The family of toys, led by spaceman Buzz Lightyear (Tim Allen) and cowgirl Jessie (Joan Cusack), are welcomed into the daycare center by a deceptively comforting teddy bear (Ned Beatty) and a naïve, upbeat Ken doll (Michael Keaton), who immediately has eyes for Barbie (Jodi Benson). Who would have guessed? The back-and-forth flirtation between Ken and Barbie offers more out-loud laughs than 90% of contemporary Hollywood comedies.
The film shifts into high gear when the toys are stuck in the infants’ room and find themselves not so much played with, but abused in ever-expanding creative ways. When they complain to the boss bear, it turns out he’s more Mafia don than lovable scout leader. Just in the nick of time, Woody (Tom Hanks) shows up to help them escape the Sunnyside “prison.”
The film’s team of screenwriters is impressive---John Lasseter, director and co-writer of the first two “Toy Story” pictures; Andrew Stanton, co-writer of the first two; Lee Unkrich, who also directed, and Michael Arndt, an Oscar winner for “Little Miss Sunshine”----and their efforts top anything any of them has produced in the past. The script reminded me of the classic screwballs from the 1930s or ‘40s, so filled with funny one-liners and hilarious physical comic bits (Mrs. Potato Head’s missing eye, a giant baby doll, the Spanish mode of Buzz) that details of the plot are completely secondary. While Buzz and Woody remain the stars, the writers use every toy in the box and get laughs with all of them. Wallace Shawn’s Rex the dinosaur, John Ratzenberger’s Hamm the piggybank and, of course, Don Rickles’ Mr. Potato Head each have priceless moments and bring a world-weary cynicism to this fast-paced cartoon.
I wouldn’t categorize “Toy Story 3” as a dark film, but it’s not quite the usual buoyant amusement one expects from Pixar/Disney, which, for me, made all the difference. How could I resist a film featuring a despondent, traumatized clown toy, a pretentious hedgehog thespian and an all-seeing, evil clapping monkey?
FIGHT CLUB (1999)
I finally got around to experiencing this dark, over-amped David Fincher film and I’m perplexed. Not so much by the controversial film itself, which amounts to sophomoric pop psychology mixed with a Robert Bly lecture, but at its cult following among young men. I assume they are enamored of Brad Pitt’s macho, impossibly persuasive anarchist Tyler, but are they buying into the movie’s view that American males have become spineless sheep or its unrelenting assault on American consumerism and our work ethic? Or did they even notice.
“Fight Club” is a grungy, muddy looking picture, appropriately released near the eve of the new millennium, in which society is presented as a series of support groups filled with somnolent souls in bad need of receiving a right hook to the face. The film does offer some irony, as these men seeking to invigorate their mundane lives end up becoming robotic followers in Tyler’s army of malcontents.
I can’t imagine that there are many of you who have yet to see “Fight Club,” but still plan to at some future date. For those who still have it at No. 134 on their Netflix queue, I offer a warning that important plot turns will be revealed in the following paragraphs.
The set-up is promising as the nameless narrator (Edward Norton) becomes addicted to attending support groups, mostly for those who are ill or have lost loved ones, and meets the like-minded Marla (Helena Bonham Carter). Though they are clearly meant for one another---she’s a cynical bohemian seemingly living hand to mouth, he’s an insurance adjuster who is obsessed with accessorizing his condo---Norton’s character sees her as an intruder and attempts to chase for out of “his” groups. Then, returning from a business trip, he meets Tyler. Under mysterious circumstances, he crashes at Tyler’s dilapidated, off-the-grid house and together they create fight club, a secretive bare-knuckles amateur boxing group in which the goal is to get the crap beat out of you on a weekly basis.
As the spiritual leader of this group (and other groups that spring up all over the country), Tyler starts pushing members to engage in various dirty tricks in their jobs, a vision that quickly escalates into creating mayhem and violence. When Norton’s narrator begins to question the growing criminality and danger of the group, Tyler disappears.
This feverish nightmare keeps descending down the rabbit hole until it hits pay dirt: Tyler doesn’t exist; he’s but an alternate personality of Norton’s character, capable of realizing and saying everything the less aggressive part of him can only imagine. After this was revealed I went back and fast-forwarded through the previous two hours and, overall, the film holds together even knowing that Pitt’s Tyler is a figment of an imagination. Of course, it doesn’t explain how he has pulled off all these extraordinary, technically intricate scenarios (sophisticated explosives come into play) or how much of what we see him doing is just part of his imagination. Rarely has a director and screenwriter (Jim Uhles working from Chuck Palahniuk’s novel) asked viewers to take such a ridiculous leap.
I disliked this film as much as I admired and enjoyed Fincher’s “Seven” (1995) and “Zodiac” (2007), both among the best film’s of their years. In many ways it reminded me of the director’s most recent and celebrated film, “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button” (2008) in that he stuffed so much into the picture that there’s no room for the characters or the story itself to breathe. Pitt, Norton and Bonham Carter are sufficiently believable, but they aren’t real characters anyway, just symbols for all of us who have been crushed by a materialistic, self-centered society.
Maybe the only real human in “Fight Club” is the sad, desperate Bob (played by, of all people, the pop singer Meatloaf), who is Tyler’s most obvious victim in this misguided therapeutic session.
PIRATE RADIO (2009)
There’s a great movie to be made about the legendary offshore British radio station “Radio Caroline,” which challenged the dominance of BBC radio during the mid-1960s, but this isn’t it.
Writer-director Richard Curtis (“Four Weddings and a Funeral,” “Love Actually”) does a nice job of capturing the rebellious enthusiasm and uncompromising devotion to the music that fueled this illegal endeavor and inspired its listening audience. But the by-the-numbers battle with the British government (personified---actually caricatured---by Kenneth Branagh’s vindictive Sir Alistair Dormandy) and the soap opera entanglements of the boat-bound disc jockeys, the two main threads of the plot, are cliché throwaways, undermining the energy of the period music.
What entertainment “Pirate Radio” provides comes from the scenes of the DJs doing their shows, recalling those great early days of rock ‘n’ roll radio when the DJ’s musical taste, political commentary and ability to turn a phrase was just as important as the latest single from the Beatles, the Who or the Doors.
A slumming Philip Seymour Hoffman as the Count, a hot-shot American jock who is the unofficial leader of this ragtag group, and Rhys Ifans, who played the witless roommate in Curtis’ “Notting Hill,” as the mysterious, pretentious Gavin, keep this boat afloat while the central tale of Carl (Tom Sturridge), the godson of the station manager unflappable manager (Bill Nighy), sputters. Too much time is wasted on Carl’s coming-of-age search for a girlfriend and a father figure, but the script doesn’t have much else to offer in terms of plot.
Sad to say, but “Pirate Radio” most closely resembles a very long episode of “The Monkees.” Luckily it does have all that glorious music---over 50 cuts from the best of ‘60s rock (except for the Beatles, a catalog nearly impossible to license)---which probably saved it from going straight to DVD..
THE RUNAWAYS (2010)
Another era’s music fuels this very familiar tale of disillusioned youths seeking salvation through rock ‘n’ roll fame. This pioneering all-girl punk band, thrown together by Los Angeles record producer Kim Fowley, launched the careers of rockers Joan Jett and Lita Ford and wannabe model/actress Cherie Currie before disbanding just three years after signing a record deal.
Michael Shannon, a 2008 Oscar nominee for “Revolutionary Road,” dominates the first half of the film as the profane, unpleasantly arrogant Fowley, who recognizes that pop music’s future is marketing not talent. He hooks up guitarist Jett (a brooding Kristen Stewart) and drummer Sandy West (Stella Maeve) and then assembles a band around them that eventually evolves into the Runaways. Fowley’s most calculated move is to “cast” troubled teen Currie (veteran child actress Dakota Fanning, now 16) as the group’s lead singer simply because he likes her look.
Fowley bullies her into a semblance of a punk shouter but also creates a self-indulgent drug addict who can’t handle her or the band’s overnight success.
The picture, based on Currie’s memoirs, never properly communicates how hugely popular the Runaways were in the late ‘70s. With hits “Cherry Bomb” and “Queens of Noise,” and selling overt sexuality on stage, the band headlined U.S. and world tours. If I didn’t know better, from watching the film, I’d have thought they were but a minor success. The film certainly doesn’t show anyone getting rich.
Instead writer-director Flora Sigismondi, whose background is in music videos, offers repetitive rehearsal scenes and rather tepid band behavior on the road, during which the soft-spoken Fanny struggles to make Currie’s downfall convincing. It’s also jolting when the soundtrack switches from the actresses performing the music in rehearsal to the actual recordings used during the film’s recreation of their live performances. That’s why most films about performers keep rehearsal scenes to a minimum.
I was impressed with Stewart, star of the “Twilight” franchise, who I had never seen act before. Her Jett, even as she becomes a rock celebrity, never loses that look of a damaged little girl. It’s a surprisingly low-keyed performance in the middle of a loud, disjointed movie. Also offering an interesting performance in a small role is former child star Tatum O’Neal, as Currie’s hopelessly irresponsible mother.
In real life, Jett went on to front another band, Joan Jett and the Blackhearts, who’s first hit, “I Love Rock ‘n’ Roll,” spent seven weeks at No. 1 during 1982. Currie’s solo singing career sputtered and she didn’t do much better as an actress, playing one of the wild girls in “Foxes” (1980) and then taking a handful of smaller roles in films and TV into the early ‘90s. Ford, played in the film by Scout Taylor-Compton, doesn’t have much to do in the movie, but after the band broke up she had a successful solo career as one of the few female heavy metal rockers, and, 30 years later, still tours.
On paper, showbiz stories always seem as if they could make compelling drama, but, like Westerns, it is crucial the filmmakers find what makes their latest version special. The clichés are essential to the genre’s appeal----humble beginnings, demanding manager, sudden fame, jealousy, drugs, booze and sex----but the successful ones (recently, “Walk the Line,” “Ray,” “Cadillac Records”) find something new in the emotions and motivations behind the performer’s success. “The Runaways” has none of that and remains mired in mediocrity, not even a one-hit wonder.
I AM LOVE (2010)
This operatic, occasionally bombastic picture portrays the mostly ordinary comings and going of a wealthy Italian family living in grand style in Milan.
The film opens impressively with an elaborately dinner party to celebrate the birthday of the family’s patriarch. This set-piece seems to go on forever as director Luca Guadagnino details every aspects of the evening---from the preparation of the food to the old man’s announcement that he’s handing over control of the family textile company to his son Tancredi (Pippo Delbonno) and grandson Edo (Flavio Parenti).
Despite some offhanded displays of emotion, the Recchis seem more like a corporation than a family. Echoing that feeling is Tancredi’s Russian-born wife and perfect hostess Emma (Tilda Swinton), whose icy, careful demeanor hides her concerns for her children and the family status. Yet she’s clearly bored with her life, struggling to stay focused doing the endless series of dinner parties, lunches and shopping trips. A thread of a plot begins to develop when she shows an unexpected interest in the young chef who is planning to open a restaurant with her son.
This very calculated film goes from remote to passionate very quickly but I never could work up much emotional connection to these characters.
Swinton, who won an Oscar for her role as the ruthless business executive in “Michael Clayton” (2007), is impression in this Italian film, mastering both the language (at least well enough for someone who is a Russian transplant) and this introspective, complex character. If it wasn’t her fascinating portrayal of a woman in full midlife crisis, this would have been an extraordinary tedious film. Most of the other characters are just well-tailored suits.
An exception is the still-striking Marisa Berenson, best known as the female lead in “Barry Lyndon” (1975), who plays Emma’s elegant mother-in-law. I actually would have been more intrigued by her story rather than the one Guadagnino and his collection of screenwriters decided to tell.
The director clearly saw this tale as something sprawling and important (you can see the influence of “The Godfather” films in more than one scene) and the heavy-handed score by Pulitzer Prize-winning composer John Adams (his best-known operas are “Nixon in China” and “Doctor Atomic”) just adds to the melodramatic bluster. At too many important moments of the film, the grave score drowns out the actors and, unintentionally, punctuates how flimsy the story really is.
In Christopher Nolan’s latest cerebral action picture, the characters never stop explaining the numerous metaphysical miracles the film presents. Whether they are in a dream, constructing a future dream or planning a dream caper, the talk is all about the process. Unlike most sci-fi thrillers, where the setup is established and then the characters experience the adventure, this film is all about making the audience buy into the setup---if and when and why they’re in a dream and whose dream it is and why the dream must end soon and how they’re going to escape the dream. I didn’t mind being confused, but all the talking about it drove me nuts.
By the final act, or should I say dream, set in a Bond film-like snow-bound complex, I was so worn down by all the dialogue required to make a semblance of sense out of this plot that I slipped into a dream myself. Seriously. I’m not making this up. I nodded off for just a few seconds and then awoke remembering being in a Las Vegas casino. The “Inception” characters are not that lucky.
These dreams turn out to be way too much like a typical Hollywood action film. In fact, these really aren’t dreams in the way we’ve been trained to experience them in movies (see Hitchcock, Bergman, David Lynch for more realistic cinematic dreaming), where strange characters say strange things and logic rarely makes an appearance. In this film, the word “dream” is used as an excuse to play around with the laws of gravity and relativity.
An especially intense and anguished Leonardo DiCaprio plays Dom Cobb, an extractor who specializes in slipping into other’s dreams and stealing secrets from their subconscious. Taking on “one last job”---as all sincere cinematic criminals must do---with a promise that he’ll be reunited with his young children in the U.S., Cobb agrees to plant the idea in the mind of the heir to an energy conglomerate (Cillian Murphy) that he should break up the firm, a move that will benefit his competitor (Ken Watanabe). Immediately, for better or worse, the film puts the viewer in the position of rooting for the success of an operation designed to enrich a greedy corporation.
Cobb and his scientific team lay out a complex plot that includes deceptive play acting at three levels of dreaming, all taking place simultaneously while they and the target take a private jet on an intercontinental flight.
I never quite understood, despite lengthy explanations by Cobb and trusted sidekick Arthur (Joseph Gordon-Levitt), how the three different dream states were connected or who was picking the environment for these alternative realities. It also turns out that these dream weavers are equally skilled at handling weapons. Apparently, in this world of dream invaders, there are also dream security teams. The lesson to be learned is that you should never go to sleep without your team in place and a pistol in your belt.
To appreciate this film, I’d advise forgetting about trying to make sense of it and just enjoy the ride, letting the entire experience wash over you. Not that I could do that. Even putting the pesky details aside, you’re still stuck with the unending discussions of what the characters can and cannot do while in a dream. And, unlike most dream experiences, not a single long-forgotten high school classmate shows up.
The most promising plotline of the film involves Cobb’s late wife (played by the always interesting Marion Cotillard), who keeps popping up in the most inopportune times in these dreams. The movie is most alive when Cobb and his wife are engaging one another, a love-hate relationship that brings out the best in the actors. Their once and current relationship keeps “Inception” from being “Mission: Impossible, Part IV.”
Ellen Page, a 2007 Oscar nominee for “Juno,” as the dream architect with a very free-flowing imagination and Gordon-Levitt, best known for last year’s “(500) Days of Summer,” have the cool, unflappable attitudes down pat but never get a chance to evolve into individuals. The two rival businessmen turn out to be the most interesting characters in the picture, slyly played by Watanabe, who earned an Oscar nomination for “The Last Samurai” (2003), and Murphy, who was a bad guy in Nolan’s “Batman Begins” (2005).
Much like his Teddy Daniels in “Shelter Island,” DiCaprio’s Cobb is a hopeless, drifting soul whose life has lost its meaning after the death of his wife. Also in both films, the characters must emerge from dream-like states to gain any semblance of a normal life. DiCaprio seems to be trying too hard in both pictures, never coming down to earth as he did so well in “Blood Diamond” and “The Departed.”
Writer-director Nolan, who became Warner Bros. favorite son after megahits “Batman Begins” and “The Dark Knight” (2008), creates some mesmerizing, one-of-a-kind visual in “Inception,” most of which can be seen in the trailer. Yet he never made me care enough about his dream world that I wanted to figure it out. When the good guys and the bad guys are indistinguishable, it’s hard to work up much emotional investment in the story. And when the rules of the game are impossible to follow, who wins or loses hardly seems to matter.
FLAME & CITRON (2009)
There’s been a ton of World War II resistance movies in the past decade, but not many feature a story as compelling or well told as the one in this Danish picture. Based on the experiences of a pair of real heroes, the film chronicles the efforts of a young hotshot assassin nicknamed Flame and his equally impassioned partner, a crumpled, unassuming Citron to disrupt the Nazi occupation of Denmark.
Thure Lindhardt as Flame and Mads Mikkelsen (the bad guy in “Casino Royale”) as Citron draw you into this story immediate as they seek out Danish collaborators and the occasional German. Ironically, the head of their resistance cell, the imperious Winther (Perer Mygind) keeps telling them to not kill Nazis, especially Hoffmann, the region’s Gestapo chief superbly portrayed by Christian Berkel (he played the barkeep in the brilliant tavern scene in “Inglorious Basterds”). But the moral clarity becomes much grayer as who and why they are killing changes and Flame starts getting conflicting information from a mysterious older woman (Stine Stengade) he takes up with.
Director Ole Christian Madsen, who co-wrote the film with Lars Andersen, never lets the action or the intrigue flag and constantly slips in foreshadowing clues as to the shifting moral dilemmas and confusing loyalties these passionate fighters face. Turns out, the politics of the resistance can be just as misguided and ambivalent as those of the enemy. In that way, and the manner in which he uses its locale (Copenhagen), it reminded me of “The Third Man” and how inseparable that film is from Vienna.
But even if you’re not into WWII actioners, the portrait of these two brave men, who sacrifice their personal lives and any hope of escaping, to make the Nazi occupation as unpleasant as possible for the Germans and their collaborators, is not to be missed. These complex, strong-willed nationalists are memorably brought to life by great performances by Lindhardt and Mikkelsen. “Flame & Citron” takes an old genre and breathes new life into it, bringing to the screen two of the most interesting resistance fighters of the war.
TOY STORY 3 (2010)
I’ve been thoroughly disappointed by so many acclaimed, highly recommended (friends with children clearly can’t be trusted) animated pictures in the past 10 years that I held out little hope for the latest Pixar “masterpiece.” My thinking was: Shouldn’t part threes of animated features go directly to DVD? Beyond appreciating the clever characters of the original, I hadn’t though much of the first two “Toy Story” films.
Yet right from the opening sequence, there was something different about Part 3. In a flashback fantasy, the imagination of a young Andy is working at full tilt, as he utilizes all his toys to provide a wondrous remembrance of childhood playtime. (Not to mention an appearance by the fondly remembered Troll dolls from the 1960s).
But those happy days for Andy’s classic toy collection are long in the past. Now, as he prepares for college, the toys sit idle in a toy chest soon to be abandoned. On the way to the attic, the garbage bag filled with the toys (save for Andy’s favorite, Woody) nearly lands in the garbage and ends up as donations to the Sunnyside Daycare Center.
The family of toys, led by spaceman Buzz Lightyear (Tim Allen) and cowgirl Jessie (Joan Cusack), are welcomed into the daycare center by a deceptively comforting teddy bear (Ned Beatty) and a naïve, upbeat Ken doll (Michael Keaton), who immediately has eyes for Barbie (Jodi Benson). Who would have guessed? The back-and-forth flirtation between Ken and Barbie offers more out-loud laughs than 90% of contemporary Hollywood comedies.
The film shifts into high gear when the toys are stuck in the infants’ room and find themselves not so much played with, but abused in ever-expanding creative ways. When they complain to the boss bear, it turns out he’s more Mafia don than lovable scout leader. Just in the nick of time, Woody (Tom Hanks) shows up to help them escape the Sunnyside “prison.”
The film’s team of screenwriters is impressive---John Lasseter, director and co-writer of the first two “Toy Story” pictures; Andrew Stanton, co-writer of the first two; Lee Unkrich, who also directed, and Michael Arndt, an Oscar winner for “Little Miss Sunshine”----and their efforts top anything any of them has produced in the past. The script reminded me of the classic screwballs from the 1930s or ‘40s, so filled with funny one-liners and hilarious physical comic bits (Mrs. Potato Head’s missing eye, a giant baby doll, the Spanish mode of Buzz) that details of the plot are completely secondary. While Buzz and Woody remain the stars, the writers use every toy in the box and get laughs with all of them. Wallace Shawn’s Rex the dinosaur, John Ratzenberger’s Hamm the piggybank and, of course, Don Rickles’ Mr. Potato Head each have priceless moments and bring a world-weary cynicism to this fast-paced cartoon.
I wouldn’t categorize “Toy Story 3” as a dark film, but it’s not quite the usual buoyant amusement one expects from Pixar/Disney, which, for me, made all the difference. How could I resist a film featuring a despondent, traumatized clown toy, a pretentious hedgehog thespian and an all-seeing, evil clapping monkey?
FIGHT CLUB (1999)
I finally got around to experiencing this dark, over-amped David Fincher film and I’m perplexed. Not so much by the controversial film itself, which amounts to sophomoric pop psychology mixed with a Robert Bly lecture, but at its cult following among young men. I assume they are enamored of Brad Pitt’s macho, impossibly persuasive anarchist Tyler, but are they buying into the movie’s view that American males have become spineless sheep or its unrelenting assault on American consumerism and our work ethic? Or did they even notice.
“Fight Club” is a grungy, muddy looking picture, appropriately released near the eve of the new millennium, in which society is presented as a series of support groups filled with somnolent souls in bad need of receiving a right hook to the face. The film does offer some irony, as these men seeking to invigorate their mundane lives end up becoming robotic followers in Tyler’s army of malcontents.
I can’t imagine that there are many of you who have yet to see “Fight Club,” but still plan to at some future date. For those who still have it at No. 134 on their Netflix queue, I offer a warning that important plot turns will be revealed in the following paragraphs.
The set-up is promising as the nameless narrator (Edward Norton) becomes addicted to attending support groups, mostly for those who are ill or have lost loved ones, and meets the like-minded Marla (Helena Bonham Carter). Though they are clearly meant for one another---she’s a cynical bohemian seemingly living hand to mouth, he’s an insurance adjuster who is obsessed with accessorizing his condo---Norton’s character sees her as an intruder and attempts to chase for out of “his” groups. Then, returning from a business trip, he meets Tyler. Under mysterious circumstances, he crashes at Tyler’s dilapidated, off-the-grid house and together they create fight club, a secretive bare-knuckles amateur boxing group in which the goal is to get the crap beat out of you on a weekly basis.
As the spiritual leader of this group (and other groups that spring up all over the country), Tyler starts pushing members to engage in various dirty tricks in their jobs, a vision that quickly escalates into creating mayhem and violence. When Norton’s narrator begins to question the growing criminality and danger of the group, Tyler disappears.
This feverish nightmare keeps descending down the rabbit hole until it hits pay dirt: Tyler doesn’t exist; he’s but an alternate personality of Norton’s character, capable of realizing and saying everything the less aggressive part of him can only imagine. After this was revealed I went back and fast-forwarded through the previous two hours and, overall, the film holds together even knowing that Pitt’s Tyler is a figment of an imagination. Of course, it doesn’t explain how he has pulled off all these extraordinary, technically intricate scenarios (sophisticated explosives come into play) or how much of what we see him doing is just part of his imagination. Rarely has a director and screenwriter (Jim Uhles working from Chuck Palahniuk’s novel) asked viewers to take such a ridiculous leap.
I disliked this film as much as I admired and enjoyed Fincher’s “Seven” (1995) and “Zodiac” (2007), both among the best film’s of their years. In many ways it reminded me of the director’s most recent and celebrated film, “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button” (2008) in that he stuffed so much into the picture that there’s no room for the characters or the story itself to breathe. Pitt, Norton and Bonham Carter are sufficiently believable, but they aren’t real characters anyway, just symbols for all of us who have been crushed by a materialistic, self-centered society.
Maybe the only real human in “Fight Club” is the sad, desperate Bob (played by, of all people, the pop singer Meatloaf), who is Tyler’s most obvious victim in this misguided therapeutic session.
PIRATE RADIO (2009)
There’s a great movie to be made about the legendary offshore British radio station “Radio Caroline,” which challenged the dominance of BBC radio during the mid-1960s, but this isn’t it.
Writer-director Richard Curtis (“Four Weddings and a Funeral,” “Love Actually”) does a nice job of capturing the rebellious enthusiasm and uncompromising devotion to the music that fueled this illegal endeavor and inspired its listening audience. But the by-the-numbers battle with the British government (personified---actually caricatured---by Kenneth Branagh’s vindictive Sir Alistair Dormandy) and the soap opera entanglements of the boat-bound disc jockeys, the two main threads of the plot, are cliché throwaways, undermining the energy of the period music.
What entertainment “Pirate Radio” provides comes from the scenes of the DJs doing their shows, recalling those great early days of rock ‘n’ roll radio when the DJ’s musical taste, political commentary and ability to turn a phrase was just as important as the latest single from the Beatles, the Who or the Doors.
A slumming Philip Seymour Hoffman as the Count, a hot-shot American jock who is the unofficial leader of this ragtag group, and Rhys Ifans, who played the witless roommate in Curtis’ “Notting Hill,” as the mysterious, pretentious Gavin, keep this boat afloat while the central tale of Carl (Tom Sturridge), the godson of the station manager unflappable manager (Bill Nighy), sputters. Too much time is wasted on Carl’s coming-of-age search for a girlfriend and a father figure, but the script doesn’t have much else to offer in terms of plot.
Sad to say, but “Pirate Radio” most closely resembles a very long episode of “The Monkees.” Luckily it does have all that glorious music---over 50 cuts from the best of ‘60s rock (except for the Beatles, a catalog nearly impossible to license)---which probably saved it from going straight to DVD..
THE RUNAWAYS (2010)
Another era’s music fuels this very familiar tale of disillusioned youths seeking salvation through rock ‘n’ roll fame. This pioneering all-girl punk band, thrown together by Los Angeles record producer Kim Fowley, launched the careers of rockers Joan Jett and Lita Ford and wannabe model/actress Cherie Currie before disbanding just three years after signing a record deal.
Michael Shannon, a 2008 Oscar nominee for “Revolutionary Road,” dominates the first half of the film as the profane, unpleasantly arrogant Fowley, who recognizes that pop music’s future is marketing not talent. He hooks up guitarist Jett (a brooding Kristen Stewart) and drummer Sandy West (Stella Maeve) and then assembles a band around them that eventually evolves into the Runaways. Fowley’s most calculated move is to “cast” troubled teen Currie (veteran child actress Dakota Fanning, now 16) as the group’s lead singer simply because he likes her look.
Fowley bullies her into a semblance of a punk shouter but also creates a self-indulgent drug addict who can’t handle her or the band’s overnight success.
The picture, based on Currie’s memoirs, never properly communicates how hugely popular the Runaways were in the late ‘70s. With hits “Cherry Bomb” and “Queens of Noise,” and selling overt sexuality on stage, the band headlined U.S. and world tours. If I didn’t know better, from watching the film, I’d have thought they were but a minor success. The film certainly doesn’t show anyone getting rich.
Instead writer-director Flora Sigismondi, whose background is in music videos, offers repetitive rehearsal scenes and rather tepid band behavior on the road, during which the soft-spoken Fanny struggles to make Currie’s downfall convincing. It’s also jolting when the soundtrack switches from the actresses performing the music in rehearsal to the actual recordings used during the film’s recreation of their live performances. That’s why most films about performers keep rehearsal scenes to a minimum.
I was impressed with Stewart, star of the “Twilight” franchise, who I had never seen act before. Her Jett, even as she becomes a rock celebrity, never loses that look of a damaged little girl. It’s a surprisingly low-keyed performance in the middle of a loud, disjointed movie. Also offering an interesting performance in a small role is former child star Tatum O’Neal, as Currie’s hopelessly irresponsible mother.
In real life, Jett went on to front another band, Joan Jett and the Blackhearts, who’s first hit, “I Love Rock ‘n’ Roll,” spent seven weeks at No. 1 during 1982. Currie’s solo singing career sputtered and she didn’t do much better as an actress, playing one of the wild girls in “Foxes” (1980) and then taking a handful of smaller roles in films and TV into the early ‘90s. Ford, played in the film by Scout Taylor-Compton, doesn’t have much to do in the movie, but after the band broke up she had a successful solo career as one of the few female heavy metal rockers, and, 30 years later, still tours.
On paper, showbiz stories always seem as if they could make compelling drama, but, like Westerns, it is crucial the filmmakers find what makes their latest version special. The clichés are essential to the genre’s appeal----humble beginnings, demanding manager, sudden fame, jealousy, drugs, booze and sex----but the successful ones (recently, “Walk the Line,” “Ray,” “Cadillac Records”) find something new in the emotions and motivations behind the performer’s success. “The Runaways” has none of that and remains mired in mediocrity, not even a one-hit wonder.
I AM LOVE (2010)
This operatic, occasionally bombastic picture portrays the mostly ordinary comings and going of a wealthy Italian family living in grand style in Milan.
The film opens impressively with an elaborately dinner party to celebrate the birthday of the family’s patriarch. This set-piece seems to go on forever as director Luca Guadagnino details every aspects of the evening---from the preparation of the food to the old man’s announcement that he’s handing over control of the family textile company to his son Tancredi (Pippo Delbonno) and grandson Edo (Flavio Parenti).
Despite some offhanded displays of emotion, the Recchis seem more like a corporation than a family. Echoing that feeling is Tancredi’s Russian-born wife and perfect hostess Emma (Tilda Swinton), whose icy, careful demeanor hides her concerns for her children and the family status. Yet she’s clearly bored with her life, struggling to stay focused doing the endless series of dinner parties, lunches and shopping trips. A thread of a plot begins to develop when she shows an unexpected interest in the young chef who is planning to open a restaurant with her son.
This very calculated film goes from remote to passionate very quickly but I never could work up much emotional connection to these characters.
Swinton, who won an Oscar for her role as the ruthless business executive in “Michael Clayton” (2007), is impression in this Italian film, mastering both the language (at least well enough for someone who is a Russian transplant) and this introspective, complex character. If it wasn’t her fascinating portrayal of a woman in full midlife crisis, this would have been an extraordinary tedious film. Most of the other characters are just well-tailored suits.
An exception is the still-striking Marisa Berenson, best known as the female lead in “Barry Lyndon” (1975), who plays Emma’s elegant mother-in-law. I actually would have been more intrigued by her story rather than the one Guadagnino and his collection of screenwriters decided to tell.
The director clearly saw this tale as something sprawling and important (you can see the influence of “The Godfather” films in more than one scene) and the heavy-handed score by Pulitzer Prize-winning composer John Adams (his best-known operas are “Nixon in China” and “Doctor Atomic”) just adds to the melodramatic bluster. At too many important moments of the film, the grave score drowns out the actors and, unintentionally, punctuates how flimsy the story really is.
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