The Big Fat Review Part I (Life of Pi, Lincoln & Django Unchained)

Story: It has been two months since I last posted a film review on this site. I just stopped writing, in the middle of the Oscar season. I had my reasons and I can come up with good excuses, but I also have something better. The Big Fat Review. Because the fact that I stopped writing about films, does not mean that I stopped watching them.

Life of Pi was astonishing. Mind-blowingly beautiful. I felt a bit uncomfortable at first with the entire religion subtext, but Oscar winning director Ang Lee solved this problem beautifully in the last act.  Central to this film is not, in my opinion, that this is a story that will make you believe in God. Life of Pi is a film that makes you understand why people, when confronted with circumstances wildly beyond their control, choose to believe in God. Curiously, the visual effects company that won the Life of Pi its second Oscar has gone bankrupt.

There is no director in the history of movies who can get away with a philosophical discussion in the middle of a dinosaur-movie for kids, and who also directs a political debate in a historical drama as if it were a nail biting action scene. Lincoln is a classic example of ‘pompous Spielberg’, following such films as Saving Private Ryan, Schindler’s List, Amistad and Close Encounters of the Third Kind. This does not mean that the film is not good. Because it quite clearly is. Daniel Day-Lewis is astonishing as Lincoln, but his thunderous performance does draw too much attention away from equally fantastic turns by Tommy Lee Jones, Sally Field and Joseph Gordon-Levitt.

Curiously, while Lincoln was about the political fight for the abolition of slavery, it did not bother showing or pointing out what a terrible injustice and crime it was. That specific historical lesson is told by Quentin Tarantino in Django Unchained, his long-awaited ‘Southern’.  I have my issues with Tarantino, and these issues played up again during Django Unchained. I can do without the sadism. I don’t need to see a man being torn apart by dogs. It is enough for me if this cruelty is suggested. Tarantino films are almost always way too long. And too talky. And every character in it speaks like Quentin. But, and herein lies the great difference with the reprehensible Inglourious Basterds, I believe that Django Unchained has a clear moral centre. The sadism is inflicted by the bad guys, and is there to highlight the immorality of slavery.  It does help that the fantastic Christoph Waltz is this time one of the good guys. While Samuel L. Jackson, Jamie Foxx and Leonardo DiCaprio all put in good performances, they are blown away by mr. Waltz.

The Big Fat Review will continue this weekend, with discussions of Silver Linings Playbook, Robot & Frank, Pitch Perfect, Arbitrage and Zero Dark Thirty.

Review: Les Misérables (dir. Tom Hooper)

Story: In 1815 Jean Valjean (Hugh Jackman), imprisoned for 19 years after stealing a loaf of bread, is released from jail by warden Javert (Russell Crowe). In the following 17 years Valjean tries to redeem his life, partially by becoming warden to the orphan Cosette (Amanda Seyfried). But his past, and Javert, follow Valjean wherever he goes.

Ladies and gentlemen, it is official. The first stinker of the year is in! It’s name is Les Misérables. It is directed by the guy who made the overrated The King’s Speech (2011) and stars everyone in the known universe (next to Jackman, Crowe and Seyfried we see Anne Hathaway, Sacha Baron Cohen, Helena Bonham Carter and Eddie Redmayne). It is adapted from the hugely successful stage show (in turn adapted from Victor Hugo’s epic novel), which is said to be ‘a musical for people who do not like musicals’. Unfortunately, in its screen adaptation, it has become a movie for people who do not like movies.

The problem is not that it is a musical. I like musicals. I like Evita, West Side Story, Singing in the Rain and Jesus Christ Superstar. But when we look at that list we can see where the problem with Les Mis lies. These other musicals have a sense of playfulness, joy or at least irony in them. Les Misérables has none of that. It is, simply put, no fun (apart from the bit where Sacha Baron Cohen and Helena Bonham Carter run a fraudulent inn – that part is funny).

Also, I do not mind people singing in films. I love good songs. And, let’s be honest, there are some good songs in Les Misérables: Look Down, I Dreamed a Dream, Master of the House and Empty Chairs at Empty Tables are excellent songs. And they are performed excellently in this film. But I cannot properly enjoy these songs because every single line of dialogue surrounding them is sung. And not just sung: performed with an overkill of emphasis, sincerity and emotion. Seriously: what’s wrong with a bit of dialogue? You know, just people talking and only bursting into good songs at appropriate moments?

And because every scene needs to be a song, and songs take time, Lés Miserables takes time. Too much time. Especially the bulk of the movie, which is set in Paris on the eve of the 1832 uprisings, is dreadfully long. And it is telling the story of the love triangle between three young people. The rivalry between Javert and Valjean – which in the beginning seemed to be the central plot line – is pushed in the background. Thereby the film loses its balance, its point and my interest. It appears in the end that Valjean’s character arc had already been completed halfway through the film!

On the plus side: a few good songs, decent performances (a truly outstanding Anne Hathaway being the exception) and gorgeous sets and costumes. On the downside: no balance, no fun, no irony, a glorification of revolution and death and Russell Crowe. Bless Russell, I think he is a terrific actor. But he is not up to the vocal challenges of his part. Hugh Jackman is (or once was) a musical performer, and he can do the singing. But put him next to Crowe and all I am seeing is a duet between Maximus and Wolverine.

Final verdict: After seeing Les Misérables this reviewer felt like Hugh Jackman’s character Jean Valjean near the end of the film: as if I’d wallowed through a stream of shit with a dead body on my shoulders. A preposterous exercise in grotesque grandstanding that offers no fun at all. And it just won’t end…

Review: Jack Reacher (dir. Christopher McQuarrie)

Story: The mysterious ex-soldier Jack Reacher (Tom Cruise) is hired by a lawyer (Rosumand Pike) to investigate a shooting of which her client is suspected. Local law enforcement (personified by David Oyelowo and Richard Jenkins) as well as a mysterious third party are not too happy with Reacher’s presence.

Lee Child has by now written over a dozen novels about Jack Reacher – a mysterious and invincible ex-soldier who fights for justice wherever he turns up. These are typical airport novels: you pick them up if you’re waiting for a plane, or to kill time on a long flight. But you’d never buy them when you are shopping for a ‘proper’ book.

It comes as no surprise then that Jack Reacher, the film adaptation of the novel One Shot, feels exactly like a movie you would watch on an airplane. It is good enough. It does what it needs to do – entertain you as long as it lasts – but it does nothing more than that.

The character Jack Reacher reminds one of Clint Eastwood’s man with no name, in Sergio Leone’s dollar trilogy. Or of these typical hard boiled detectives from Raymond Chandler novels. Tough men, living on the borders of the law, but always fighting the good fight. The film Jack Reacher also invokes these sterotypes: it is set in a nameless city in the middle of the USA, with no apparent connections to the outside world – save a busline or two. There the two stereotypical women in this drama: an expendable whore and an angelic, blonde saint. And the bad guy is really, really bad.

Actually, he is perhaps the most enjoyable element of Jack Reacher. German renegade filmmaker Werner Herzog turns up with one glass eye, some chomped off fingers and a hell of story to tell. Unfortunately he feels like he did not just wander in from a different film, but from a different universe. For the other actors are awfully bland. Oyewolo, Jenkins and even the usually likable Pike turn in mediocre and uninspired performances. And in this film, Tom Cruise is a problem.

Fans of the Lee Child novels have complained about the casting off miniature actor Tom Cruise as Jack Reacher, who is described in the books as being enormously tall. My problem is not that Cruise is not Child’s Reacher. My problem is that Cruise is Cruise. I keep seeing Mission: Impossible’s Ethan Hunt, but the things that Reacher does do not comply with the image of Hunt. It pulls me out of the film more than it should. And I do not think that this is necessary, because in contrast to public perception: Cruise can act. And he can do not-so-nice guys. Just look at Magnolia or Collateral.

On the plus side: there is one good gag about hookers and there is a nice practical joke involving a baseball cap. Robert Duvall makes a nice, short appearance. Furthermore the film has a terrifying opening scene, a more-than-decent car chase in the middle and an exciting shoot-out in the end.

Final Verdict: With a little more effort this could have been very exciting and entertaining stuff. In its current state, it’s only just above the genre average.

Top 10 – the Best Ten Films of 2012

Hurray! An end-of-the-year list with good movies! Rejoice!*

10 The Descendants

A lovely portrait of middle-age. The rough edges and the cynicism that characterized director Alexander Payne’s earlier films are smoothed over – to a very satisfying effect. George Clooney delivers a career-high performance. Extra kudos for the gorgeous images of everyday Hawaii.

 

9 The Hunger Games

The big surprise of the year. I, for one, would never have thought that anything that seems knock-off Twilight on the surface could make this good a film. Jennifer Lawrence proves herself to be a true leading lady, one like Hollywood has not seen in years.

 

8 Moonrise Kingdom

A film that much resembles The Descendants, in that it is the softest, cuddliest film in the corpus of its director. Many people are annoyed by Wes Anderson’s blend of depressed Bill Murrays and high concept stylization, but this is a film with a warm and true heart. Excellent performance all around, especially by the kids, and the best soundtrack of the year.

 

7 Cloud Atlas

Arguably the greatest filmmaking achievement of the year. A film project that seemed most likely to be made fun off, or at least provoke some raised eyebrows. But Tykwer and the Wachowski’s adapt an apparently unadaptable book and deliver a movie with a point as well as six climaxes. That it never feels too long is a credit to the excellent editing.

 

6 The Dark Knight Rises

Especially upon repeated viewing it becomes clear that Nolan’s final Batman film is not as good as the two films preceding it. There is some shoddy editing, and the lack of substantial politics disappointed me. But one cannot deny that this is still really good stuff. A mature superhero film on an unprecedented scale.

 

5 End of Watch

An incredibly tense police film with fantastic performances by Jake Gyllenhaal and Michael Pena. The original cinematography – a blend of found footage and first-person shooter games – is its characterizing feature, but there is much substance to all this surface. There is no space for nuance here – the bad guys are very bad indeed – but what the hell? Who cares?

 

4 Anna Karenina

Its first half hour is the best half hour of cinema I’ve seen this year. No film can look like this and still tell a good story about interesting characters, so it is good that after that half hour Anna Karenina slows down to focus on its drama. Joe Wright’s second big achievement with this film is that Tolstoy’s outdated ethics actually do seem quite sensible.

 

3 Martha Marcy May Marlene

Already in 2011 this was the darling of the Sundance festival. We had to wait for a long time to get to see it here in The Netherlands, but boy, was it worth the wait! An outstanding debut for both director Sean Durkin and leading lady Elizabeth Olsen, who has more than twice the talent of her two older siblings combined.

 

2 The Muppets

A surprise choice perhaps. Not the choice made by any esteemed critic with proper taste. But hell, The Muppets made me happier than any other film this year. I laughed, I cried, and back at home I was still singing along with the lyrics.

 

1 Bir Zamanlar Anadolu’da

Aka Once Upon a Time in Anatolia. Completely overwhelming drama about modern-day Turkey and the burdens it carries from its history. The tracking shot of a half-eaten apple rolling down a hill and into a little stream is an example of filmmaking machismo by one of the art’s masters; Nuri Bilge Ceylan. But more crucial is the shot of the doctor, seeing the wife and son of the murder victim walking home. It left me breathless.

 

* Circumstance prevented me from seeing Ang Lee’s The Life of Pi before the close of the year. So it will be a 2013 contender.

Results: The Jasper’s Take Awards 2012

The least coveted awards in the film business. The ones about which Matt Damon might have said “which ones?” The ones that even Kate Winslet is not interested in. They’re here. They’re now. The Jasper’s Take Awards 2012 (not Winslet and Damon, though that’d have been very cool). So, I hear you thinking, who are the ignorant winners?

The Michael Bay Award for loudest action film

In the absence of Michael Bay himself this year, and with the knowledge that I did not go and see the reportedly deafening Battleship, this award goes to – drum raffle and big bang – The Avengers. A film so loud that my review was literally unhearable in the mayhem…

The Adam Sandler Award for least funny comedy

Adam Sandler himself churned out two hugely unlikable ‘comedies’ this year (That’s My Boy and Jack & Jill), but to let him take part in this awards race would be unfair to the other contenders. So which movie was the least funny funny-film in 2012? Don’t laugh! It was The Watch. The only good thing about this film is that it reminded me of The IT-Crowd…

The Intelligent Design Award for worst case of history rewritten

There is actually some fun to be had with the idea of moon-nazis. And there is something charming about a British bloke making up an affair he had with Marilyn Monroe. Hugo sweetened the history of early cinema a bit too much, but had a good heart. But real toe-curling history-twitching this year concerned the painful subjects of slavery and racism. The award is shared between Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter (this year’s worst film in general) and the painful The Help (aka White People Solve Racism).

The Iron Man 2 Award for least inspired sequel/prequel/spin-off

Next year this award can be properly awarded to Iron Man 3 of course, but for now we’ll have to make due. What was the least-inspired, most blindly-cash-grabbing sequel, threequel, spin-off, prequel or reboot of the year? Of course! It was the entirely unwanted The Amazing Spider-Man. A film that was only made so that Sony could keep the rights to the world’s most boring super hero.

The Martin McFly Award for best use of time travelling 

Quite some time-travelling going on this year. Or going to be in the history of thirty years from now. Looper had me wondering too often ‘what? And ‘how?’ Men in Black III was simply caught up in its own inconsistencies. Total Recall went back to the eighties and stole the set of Blade Runner, so that rules it out of competition. Which made me choose between Goldfinger‘s Aston Martin turning up in Skyfall and the eventual winner: The Muppets! Yes! Now that Einsteinian physics is re-established, surely the travel-by-map option constitutes bending the rules of light and time?

The Mind Heist Award for most enthusiasticating trailer

The most difficult choice. Argo‘s use of Dream On? The mysterious moodiness of Bir Zamanlar Anadolu’da? Skyfall‘s breath-take-away-er? Fiveandahalf (!) minutes of Cloud Atlas? All worthy contenders, but the award for the best trailer goes to….

The Flop 10 – the Worst Ten Films of 2012

Upon me falls the sad duty to take stock and tell you, honestly, what were the worst or most disappointing ten films of 2012. So here we go.

 

10 To Rome With Love

Some films feature on this list, not because they were objectively amongst the worst films of the year, but because they were very disappointing in comparison to a precursor. After the surprisingly ironic and thoughtful Midnight in Paris, Woody Allen’s return to farce and stereotype – even though not without some good jokes – is one of these disappointments.

 

9 Wrath of the Titans

Wrath of the Titans is the opposite of To Rome With Love: An equally clear and unexpected improvement on the first film of the franchise. However, when that first film is the abismal Clash of the Titans, this by no means indicates that Wrath… is any good. At least it did feature an actual titan…

 

8 Man on a Ledge

Poor Sam Worthington stars in two movies on this list. Bu unlike Wrath of the Titans, Man on a Ledge actually had the balls to pretend it was a smart and sophisticated thriller. Something that was finally disproved when Genesis Rodriguez (that’s her actual name) strips down with no apparent reason in the plot. Nice to look at, but utterly stupid. Much like the film then.

 

7 Dark Shadows

Perhaps we should give Tim Burton some credit for actually trying to adapt a crap soap opera. Perhaps. But Burton has a reputation. He has talent – as he showed later in the year with the gorgeous Frankenweenie. For a film maker of Burton’s stature there is simply no excuse for making something so boring and incoherent.

 

6 The Watch

Alien invasion films are so 2011. Vince Vaughn was never funny in the first place. Stiller must be expected to deliver more. Jonah Hill was supposed to have grown up a bit after Moneyball. And the fabulous Richard Ayoade deserves a much better Hollywood debut. Extra dislikes for ruining an apparently original set-up.

 

5 On the Road

It is good that we now know for certain that Jack Kerouac’s famous beatnik novel does not translate well to film. And is genuinely outdated. Terribly unlikable characters are a stallwart of the worst fiolms of 2012, and On the Road is no example. Especially the talented female actors in this film (Kristen Stewart and Kirsten Dunst) are particularly badly treated.

 

4 Rock of Ages

Really. These 1980 wannabe rock songs did not need sugarcoating. Nor did they need to be performed by kids who appear to have wandered straightaway from the Disney channel. Good supporting roles by Tom Cruise, Alec Baldwin and Russell Brand cannot save this trainwreck of a musical.

 

3 John Carter

Missing all your marks, looking like a drug addicts fever dream, being utterly silly and failing massively at the box office (Disney reportedly lost some 200 million dollars on this single film) are not enough to be called the worst film of the year. But it does get Andrew Stanton’s trainwreck of a blockbuster on third spot.

 

2 Alles is Familie

Another film that is here because it utterly fails to live up to the standards of a precursor. 2007′s Alles is Liefde was a delightful romantic comedy – even better than Love Actually, from which it stole its concept. But this ‘semi-sequel’ has no likable characters, nothing ot no-one to relate to, no balance or structure, and – most importantly – no good jokes.

 

1 Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter

A ‘film’ that looks and sounds like a computer game. Like there are so many out there – every summer. But this one (produced by Tim Burton and directed by none less than Timur Bekmambetov) had the guts to sideline the sad history of slavery as something invented by fantasy monsters. Shocking.

Review: Anna Karenina (dir. Joe Wright)

Story: Czarist Russia in the 1850s. Anna Karenina (Keira Knightley), the wife of a high government official (Jude Law), strikes up an affair with a dashing young cavalry captain (Aaron Taylor-Johnson). However, nineteenth-century Russian society – not to mention the law – does not look kindly at such frivolities.

One could be forgiven for thinking that Joe Wright is a show-off. Staging Anna Karenina in a theater and all. To actually adapt one of the great novels of the nineteenth century and setting most of its scenes – including a horse race with living, breathing horses! – in a theater. Fortunately, Wright has admitted that this was actually a necessity: using a multitude of ‘normal’ sets and real locations would have been too expensive.

Fortunately, also, Wright (Pride and Prejudice, Atonement, Hanna) uses his theatrical setting very effectively. Without it being said by any character, it is very clear to what extent society life in czarist Russia was a matter of acting, of sticking to the script, of knowing very well the important differences between on stage and behind the scenes. Wright thus sticks to that most important of film truisms: show, don’t tell. If Wright is showing off, at least he is not telling us off.

Wright’s signature is the long take. The long take in which the camera follows James McAvoy strolling down a hellish Dunkirk beach in Atonement. Or the long take in which it follows Eric Bana through a Berlin train station, being assulted by thugs, in Hanna. In Anna Karenina there are again many of such long takes. The most beautiful one follows Keira Knightley and Aaron Taylor-Johnson while they dance for the first time. They twist and twirl while – around them – other pairs of dancers freeze and unfreeze. This scene, much like the whole first half hour, appears to be not so much directed as choreographed. And the camera dances along. A stunning feat. And if it wasn’t so effective in sharing with the audience the excitement and emotion of falling in love, one would be forgiven for saying that Joe Wright is just showing off.

After that fabulous first half-hour – probably the best half hour of cinema of this year – the narrative and the camera necessarily slow down to show the destruction of Anna Karenina’s character in painful detail. Keira Knightley – although still scarily thin – is very good. So is Taylor-Johnson. But the real stars of this film are Jude Law as the cold but loving Karenin and Domhnall Gleeson as Levin – a young aristocrat whose romantic fortunes are directly (if unintentedly) influenced by Karenina’s.

As the story moves on, meandering its way through the life of (perhaps a few too many) Russian aristocrats, one cannot help but yearning for an twist of luck or an easy way out for the characters. But Tolstoy’s novel offers no easy escapes or happy endings. We must and shall witness the unhappiness that love brings about. Director Wright and screenwriter Tom Stoppard succeed admirably in rendering Tolstoy very old-fashioned morale code relevant and sensible to modern audiences.

Final verdict: Anna Karenina might not be for everyone. But then, so is the novel on which it is based. It is a stunning piece of work by a director on the top of his game and a cast devoted to the material and the director’s vision. For all the shiny surfaces it can boast about, its major achievement is making the (admittedly) dusty morale of the story completely believable.