Mankind is threatened by global warming, and in an effort to turn the tide, introduces a cooling agent into the atmosphere. A deep freeze results and the only survivors live on a train run on perpetual motion that circles the earth, said train having been developed by a prescient bazillionaire (Ed Harris). The poor, led by Chris Evans (Captain America), eat mushy protein bars in the last car, while the rich are pampered with sushi, drugs, saunas and opulence in the front. Evans leads a revolt and the proletariat move from car to car to get control.
This is high concept, ambitious dystopia, but it is also unsubtle, mostly ridiculous, high concept dystopia, inadequately explained (a perpetual motion train?) and saddled with an unwieldy end (Harris shows up, like the wizard behind the curtain, to explain all). I’m all for ambition, but this is several trestles too far.
The film also contains a simplistic Have v. Have Nots political theme, which probably accounts for its appearance on so many top ten lists. For an example of the film tickling the right funny bone, one need go no further than The San Francisco Chronicle’s Mick LaSalle and his juvenile conclusion: “It’s a film that, in its own peculiar way, forces viewers to question their values and ask themselves how much they’re willing to sacrifice for a functioning society, and how much is too much.” If it takes the likes of Snowpiercer to force LaSalle to question his own values, I’m surprised he didn’t join a monastery after The Hunger Games.
The picture is also unwisely reliant on Evans, who lacks the gravitas of a dark, brooding action hero and the chops to handle the big, tortured soliloquy at the end. We’re supposed to be dazzled, but like most products of graphic novels, it’s a slick, empty endeavor with a few interesting parts. Tilda Swinton is also very funny as a bucktoothed toady for Harris.
Michael Winterbottom’s The Tripwas a charming buddy flick/travelogue through the north of Britain, though these buddies (Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon) are British comedians and master impersonators (I still can’t decide who does the best Michael Caine). I couldn’t imagine the first film lending itself to a sequel. I was wrong. The Trip to Italy is derived from a TV show on BBC Two, like the first film, and it is every bit as funny. Though the banter of Coogan and Brydon is a tad staler, what comes through in their uncanny ability to riff is a deep affection, all set in the beauty of Italy from Liguria to Rome to Capri to Naples. Winterbottom also grounds the characters with occasional but insightful reference to their domestic lives.
I confess I laughed much harder than my wife, which reminded me of a funny scene from Knocked Up.
The back and forth between Coogan and Brydon is only a bit more highbrow, but what they are engaging in is not so much conversation as a mixture of shit-giving, competition, and entertainment comprised of variations on old themes and bits. Their discourse eschews any quiet moment, rejects a detour into anything serious, is decidedly male and, I suspect, has a very short shelf life for females, who, let’s face it, are more highly evolved.
The best film in what has been a very strong year, writer-director Damien Chazell’s story of a 19-year-old jazz drummer (Miles Teller) and his relationship with his driven jazz teacher, played by J.K. Simmons, is flawlessly delivered and thought-provoking. Teller aspires to be the next Buddy Rich, and matriculates at the best music school in the country. Simmons chooses him to join his ensemble, a stepping stone to greatness but also, an invitation to the meat grinder of abuse handed out by the demanding, mercurial instructor.
The story avoids every pitfall and expected plot turn of a feature film, yet it is not contrary for the sake of it. You can count on two hands the places a more pedestrian picture would take you, and the resolutions it would offer, but in service of a better narrative, Whiplash rejects the certainty of the tried and true, instead allowing the audience to come to their own conclusions.
The film is also about something, exploring the nature of greatness and what is necessary to achieve it; the limits of drive and the intersection of ego and cause; the meaning of teaching; and the changes and struggles between nature and nurture, raising children, molding character and demanding perfection. At one point, Simmons remarks, “There are no two words in the English language more harmful than good job,” and while that may play well to the instincts of some, he is such a flawed deliverer of the message, the audience is forced to question such an ethos knowing it will be practiced by such people. I saw the film with my wife, my college-age daughter, and my high school-age son, and we talked about it – and I’m confident will continue to do so – for some time.
The film is evenhanded, a trait best represented in its depiction of minor characters. In a family dinner scene, Teller’s family, who appear casually condescending towards his achievements, are also perfectly decent, pushing back at his obnoxious “tortured artist” routine with annoyance but also concern and patience. When Teller is approached by an attorney who represents a student allegedly harmed by Simmons’ practices, she does not lick her chops.
The picture is also stunningly confident, an achievement made even more impressive by its 19 day shooting schedule and $3.1 million budget. Clint Eastwood released a film about music earlier this year, and he should have consulted Chazell about how to make Jersey Boys less static, less turgid. Whiplash is loaded with musical numbers played by stationary figures, but the camera riffs along with notes, constantly in motion, and like the art form it dramatizes, it is inventive and surprising.
I can’t commend the performances of Teller and Simmons enough. They are both entirely natural and convincing, Teller conveying the conflicting hubris and hesitation of an ambitious yet shy young man, Simmons the grandiosity and brutality of the committed, brilliant instructor, inspiring one minute, petty the next.
Finally, Chazell has done something that is very rare in film. I suppose there are some folks who see Gladiator and think, “Hmmm. Roman history looks interesting. I might take a look into that.” But not many. Conversely, by his own depiction of the music, and the dramatization of love for it through the eyes of Teller and Simmons, I’m confident that many people who see Whiplash will one day look back at it as their entrée to jazz. That may be my enthusiasm for the picture talking (I’m not a jazz enthusiast myself), but I’m sticking with it.
Full disclosure – I came in late, but I saw enough of this obvious, treacly, hackneyed, preachy pile of cornpone to feel safe that I didn’t miss the good part. Hitler is destroying all of Europe’s art. The Monuments Men, each and every one a gentle soul borne of devotion to those things that ennoble us, arrive in Europe to stop him. In the process, they say things like: “You can wipe out an entire generation, you can burn their homes to the ground and somehow they’ll still find their way back. But if you destroy their history, you destroy their achievements and it’s as if they never existed. That’s what Hitler wants and that’s exactly what we are fighting for” and “Who would make sure that the statue of David is still standing or the Mona Lisa is still smiling? Who will protect her?”
It’s not hard to figure what director and co-writer George Clooney was aiming for, an inspiring, old-fashioned period piece that trumpets the virtues of humanity in a world mired in barbarism, updated to include a little wit. Call it “Band of Oceans 14.”
Clooney fails utterly. Every character is stock, and the film feels untethered, veering wildly from the cornily comic to the embarrassingly sentimental (the deaths of Downton Abbey master Hugh Bonneville and Jean Judarin from The Artistare laughably operatic). Bill Murray and Bob Balaban go for some night air, meet a scared German boy-soldier and share a cigarette with him. Makes you think, right? Then, Matt Damon, a member of the mission to save the art, steps on a land mine, prompting Clooney to quip, “Why d’you do something like that?” And then Elliot Gould and Brad Pitt show up and they all have a drink at The Bellagio.
Clooney took a very interesting story and made it a bunch of hooey. Turns out Hitler didn’t order the destruction of art. Now, is Hitler the kind of historical character you actually need to lie about to make him look worse? I submit he is not. But this manifest picture isn’t taking any chances.
Very funny, very raw, often insightful comedy written and directed by Chris Rock. Rock stars as a facsimile of himself, a Hollywood success straight out of the mean streets of NYC, returned home on the eve of his made-for-Bravo wedding to a reality star (Gabrielle Union) and the opening of his shot at a serious film after making his fortune in broad comedies (the most successful of which is the Hammy the Bear series, which delivers a running joke, as everywhere Rock goes, you hear “hey, Hammy!”). Four years sober, Rock is accompanied on his return by a New York Times reporter (Rosario Dawson). A convincing love story ensues as Rock opens up to her about his rise, fall, fears and regrets.
The film starts off a bit choppy, mainly due to the fact that Rock has to carry most if it. Rock has a winning smile and a wicked perceptivity, but he carries the armor and remove of a lot of comics, so his manner is a bit stiff, forestalling investment. But soon, Rock gets in his element, as he is surrounded by a dozen very good comics to play off. He loosens up in the second half, which allows him to reach deeper to connect with Dawson.
Rock borrows liberally from Judd Apatow’s Funny Peopleand evokes Woody Allen’s chatty vibe (Rock’s back and forth with Dawson on the real reason for Martin Luther King’s assassination is alone worth the ticket and emblematic of their clever repartee) but he also writes strong, emotional moments which resonate stronger and longer than the gags, in particular, Rock’s reconnection with his father.
There is trouble in the North Pole. Santa (Jim Broadbent) is listless and bored, barely phoning it in. His oldest son and heir (Hugh Laurie) has digitized and corporatized Christmas, while his predecessor (Bill Nighy), retired, undermines him at every turn, dreaming of a return to glory. His youngest son (James MacAvoy) has the spirit but lacks any discernible skill. When a gift from Santa goes undelivered, the fissures of this dysfunctional royal family emerge.
The computer animation is expert, the story enjoyable for kids and adults alike, and it’s even slyly subversive. Santa Nighy is a misogynist, Laurie’s male elf assistant appears to have a crush on him, and the elves who man the North Pole have a denizen-of-Jonestown quality (so much so that the film threatens a mass elf suicide at the end).
I just saw this on the AFI big screen with Will and my nephew in from Spain, Julian. A great holiday classic.
John McClain (Bruce Willis), a NYC cop who is flying to LA to spend some time with his kids over Christmas, drops by his estranged wife’s (Bonnie Bedelia) holiday party in the gleaming high-rise, Nakatomi Plaza. Unfortunately, he arrives just when the party is crashed by a terrorist gang led by the slick and debonair Hans Gruber (Alan Rickman). The terrorists had the perfect plan, but they did not foresee a rogue cop picking them off one by one.
When I first saw Die Hard, I was impressed such an efficient, commercial, cop-against-the world shoot ’em up could be so deft and clever. Most contemporary blockbuster cop pictures were devoid of humor; featured laughable, deadly serious male leads spouting leaden dialogue and women relegated to looking 80s video hot; invariably starred Sylvester Stallone, Arnold Schwarzenegger or Steven Seagal; and sucked. The only outliers were vehicles for established comedians (Beverly Hills Cop) or buddy pics (48 Hours and Lethal Weapon).
Willis, in his first big role, is winning. When the terrorists strike, he is in his wife’s private office bathroom, shoeless and clad in pants and a wifebeater. He’s vulnerable, put-upon and even giddy, and his charm is infectious. He’s the perfect guide.
He’s assisted by an intricate, charming villain. Rickman eschews stock heavy, opting for an amused persona that hides a deeper ruthlessness :
The film also features numerous secondary characters who resonate even with limited screen time. Reginald VelJohnson is the patrolman first on the scene and McClain’s link via walkie-talkie to the activities on the ground, with a tragic backstory of his own; Alexander Gudonov is the number 2 for the terrorists, infuriated because McCalin has killed his brother; Bedelia becomes the de facto leader of the hostages and has a few nifty exchanges with Rickman; and William Atherton (the haughty EPA investigator in Ghostbusters) is a convincing slimy television reporter. Most notable is Hart Bochner, the coke-snorting LA cool cat who works for Bedelia. I always thought Bochner would be a big star and the scene where he tries to “negotiate” McClain’s surrender damn near steals the picture.
Finally, Jeb Stuart’s writing is fresh, cynical and all the more surprising given this was his first picture. Stuart writes for all characters, providing great, unobtrusive repartee.
A banana split, with two pounds of cane sugar dumped on top, followed by a generous ladling of chocolate syrup, dropped in a bucket of melted cotton candy and deep fried in maple butter, then placed on film. That is . . . Love Actually.
The only thing that recommends this monstrosity is Billy Bob Thornton playing an American president as an uncanny mix of Bill Clinton and George W. Bush. Even this brief treat is spoiled by his counterpart, British PM Hugh Grant, who apparently reverses relations with the U.S. solely because he caught Thornton feeling up his secretary.
It’s all too precious. Avoid the tooth decay and bellyache, even in the judgment altering season that is Christmas.
2022 Update: I took a few years off from my annual autopsy of this festering corpse, and lo and behold, the film celebrated a 20th anniversary. I must concede, it never occurred to me that this trite, candied, filmic effluvium could have been worse in an earlier incarnation, but it appears the editors exercised unknown restraint.
That cute kid who learned how to drum and fell in love? Liam Neeson’s darling little urchin? Turns out, as originally envisioned, he was a gymnast, and he was going ballet his way through the airport to greet his love.
This is akin to creating a highly toxic disease that infects the public but then announcing, “Well, before the lab leak, we did manage to contain the flesh-eating variant”.
Um . . . thanks?
Apparently, in test screenings, the mass retching created a significant liability issue, so they cut it.
Prior entries:
2015 Update: Look, this is a gruesome film, substituting true emotion and pathos with a staggering falsity. If you ever met anyone in your life anywhere near as quaint and darling as any of the characters in this bucket of marshmallow and melted gumdrops, it’s likely they are an enemy of the state infiltrating our ranks for a low purpose. Before you feel your heart swoon and your mouth say “awwwwwwww”, run. Run for your damned life.
2016 Update:
Think about how creepy it would be for a person who long-pined for you to show up at your door with cue cards (one of which has semi nude women on it) to reveal his long held love immediately after you have chosen another. Keira Knightley seems to think this is charming, but in point of fact, she should have called the cops. This weirdo is now going to do . . . what, exactly? Go off to Tahiti because mere proximity to his lost love is too much for him to handle? Go to his apartment thinking that his gambit may pay off, that Knightley might think to herself, “Hmmmmmm. He must really love me.” Hang around, quietly watching . . . waiting . . . hoping . . . tinkering with her husband’s brake lines.
This scene is emblematic of this stupid film because it trades a sentimental ball of goo moment for what should have been a larger and more generous gesture. The dude should have simply left Knightley to her new husband and their life, which would have been stoic and laudable.
But nooooooo. Let’s make this icky.
Married women, think of you, at home, newly betrothed for a few weeks, snuggling with your husband. Then, his best friend of decades comes to the door with cue cards and professes his long love for you. Now, remove the gloppy music, the cobblestones, and the holiday lights and Love Actually becomes . . . . Play Misty For Me? When the stalker says, “Enough. Enough now,” I sensed menace, crazy shit going on in his head like the dog haunting Son of Sam’s noggin. Had he gone back in the townhouse and killed them all, it still wouldn’t save this vile film, though it would have been an improvement.
Also, how dumb is the husband? The boom box is supposed to be a substitute for carolers, but it is a professional singer with some harmonists and an orchestra.
Sorry, Keira. The guy you chose is a moron and the one you did not is going to kill you.
Also, one of the loon’s cards says “And at Christmas, you tell the truth.”
Ludicrous. You no more tell the truth at Christmas than on Easter or Arbor Day.
2017 Update:
This year, let’s delve into this kid, so precocious, so darling, and just so articulate!
“Do you really want to know . . . even though you won’t be able to do anything to help . . . the truth is, actually, I’m in love?”
Couldn’t you just eat him . . . . . I mean, eat him up.
The only thing that could make this scene work is if a bunch of shady Eastern European thugs showed up, grabbed the boy, attempted to sell him into white slavery, and Liam Neeson started on the Taken series quite a bit earlier.
Then, this sweetums might know what is indeed worse than “the total agony of being in love.”
2018 Update:
Let’s talk about the secretary, Prime Minister Hugh Grant’s love interest. She is referred to as “chubby” by another aide and she herself explains that her boyfriend “said no one’d fancy a girl with thighs the size of tree trunks.”
First, I can’t believe this kind of fat shaming allows for enjoyment of this film by any decent person.
Second, I really don’t give a rip about fat shaming. But the woman is not in the slightest bit fat. It is a ridiculous conceit. It makes absolutely no sense. She is buxom, one of the few enjoyable aspects of this filmic turd pile.
So, the movie is abusive and retrograde, which I for one will not let stand even at the expense of your enjoyment. Perhaps worse, it doesn’t even know what a fat person looks like. Ridiculous.
2019 Update:
In this years’ entry, let us take up the Martin Freeman-Joanna Page story line. Apparently, these two meet while playing body doubles on the set of a porn flick. This seemed absurd, but I did my legwork. As confirmed by the screenwriterand much of the commentary, they are, indeed, supposed to be on the set of a porn flick.
I have learned about pornography solely for purposes of this review, and be it hardcore or arty soft core, one of the genre’s principal draws to a producer is the low to non-existent production costs.
Yet, by the looks of the sets and the crew and the fact that there are stand-ins for the actors who will be performing the actual sex act on camera, this appears to be a multi-million dollar production.
Worse, not only are Freeman and Page forced to endure an assistant ordering them to shift mechanical poses and pretend to be having sex, he has them do it in the nude, which would seem completely unnecessary, except, and this is a quote, “lighting and camera want to know when we will actually see the nipples”.
Apparently, the “real” actors are cooling their heels in the green room while the stand-ins work to make the shots just so.
So, for purposes of super cute chit-chat, we are presented with two of the most pathetic characters in film history. They won’t even be receiving wages for having actual sex on camera, but rather, the pay will be for standing in and simulating sex for other people who will be simulating or having sex on camera, i.e., the stars!
What could that amount be? A couple of quid?
This is a job . . . okay, it’s not a job, because this premise is so mind-boggling lazy and ridiculous, but were it a job, it is one for meth heads.
It’s difficult to resist a dissipated, alcoholic, and profane Billy Bob Thornton as a Santa Claus who works department stores to crack their safes, especially when he meets an eternally cheerful but clueless grade schooler (Brett Kelly) left alone with his addled grandmother (Cloris Leachman) in their tony Arizona suburban ranch home. In true Christmas spirit, Thornton discovers the boy is essentially alone and defenseless, moves right in, raids the liquor cabinet, and trysts with a slutty barkeep (Lauren Graham) who has a Santa fetish.
Santa is so bad he rips open the kid’s Advent calendar to get at some chocolates. He pisses himself on the job. He beats up children. He engages in sodomy in the dressing rooms of the Big & Tall Women’s section of the department store. He looks in the cherubic faces of all those blessed children who revere him and . . . well, see for yourselves.
Is there redemption for Bad Santa? Kind of. But Thornton is a character who could endure three Dickensian ghosts and conclude, “Eh. Fuck ’em.”
Bad Santa is the ultimate anti-Christmas flick and a holiday favorite. Thornton is brutally acerbic (especially when dealing with a host of bratty kids on his lap), Graham is indescribably hot, and John Ritter and Bernie Mac (as mall security and management) contribute significantly to the humor (Ritter’s repulsion/fascination with Bad Santa is inspired; what a loss he was).
I was alerted to this film by David Thomson’s tribute to its writer, R.I.P. Alan Sharp, a Writer Too Dark for Hollywood. Thomson credited two Sharp films, Ulzana’s Raid and Night Moves: “Neither of them was nominated for anything, and only Ulzana’s Raid did any business. But if you want to experience the richness of American films in the early 1970s, they are worth tracking down. You will be surprised how complex they are and how tense. They seem to understand movie narrative in a way so few films do today: He used mystery to draw audiences into his stories, trained them to answer the small puzzles, and then had them ready to grasp the implications he preferred not to underline. And both films are tough, bitter, and bleak, bearing the imprint of an unusual and talented outsider.”
Whenever we watch a movie from the 70s, my wife sighs and asks, “Is everybody going to die in this one?” Night Moves is indeed a dark film, but Thomson is also dead-on in identifying its allure. Gene Hackman plays a former pro football player turned private detective who is hired by an aging Hollywood not-quite-a-star (a dissipated but crafty Janet Ward) to find her wayward 16 year old daughter (Melanie Griffith, reprising her jailbait, tart role in The Drowning Pool, minus the malevolence). Griffith has taken flight, bouncing between movie sets in Arizona and her creepy stepfather’s (John Crawford) compound in the Florida Keys. In the meantime, Hackman discovers that his wife (Susan Clark) is having an affair, so he is in essence conducting two investigations, only one of which is really private. The picture is leisurely and intricate, until, as Thomson notes, a “deeply upsetting” end.
Hackman turns in an interesting version of the traditional private investigator, part canny but part limited. He is clever, but not the sharpest knife in the drawer. He’s also very human, a vulnerability. Along with Elliott Gould’s Phillip Marlowe in Robert Altman’s The Long Goodbye, Hackman’s p.i. is a marked and welcome departure from the type.
Sharp’s dialogue is noteworthy, especially in some of the exchanges between Hackman and Clark as they confront the state of their marriage and the import of her infidelity. Hackman is also given some wonderful lines:
Ward: Are you the kind of detective who, once you get on a case nothing can get you off it? Bribes, beatings, the allure of a woman…
Hackman: That was true in the old days. Before we had a union.
* * *
Paula: How do you resist Delly?
Hackman: Oh, I just think good, clean thoughts, like Thanksgiving, George Washington’s teeth.
* * *
Crawford: (on his nubile stepdaughter Griffith) You’ve seen her. God, there should be a law.
Original review
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