The Movies of This Winter…

The Big’uns:

 Jack Reacher (dir. Christopher McQuarrie) stars Tom Cruise (oversized smurf) as a former military man who is described, in Lee Child’s novels about him, as a blonde giant of a man. Little that can go wrong there then. Wreck-it-Ralph (dir. Rich Moore) is a Disney feature about the bad guy in an arcade game, who decides that he does not want to be the bad guy anymore and sets out on a journey to other games. Very promising indeed, if only for the appearance of beloved characters from games that were played by people who were kids in the 1990s. Django Unchained will see Quentin Tarantino tastelessly screwing up (movie) history once more, now with the help of Jamie Foxx, Christopher Waltz and Leonardo DiCaprio. Get your act together Quentin, and go make another Jackie Brown. Hansel and Gretel: Witch Hunters could be real fun, or it could be the next Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter. But it is directed by Norwegian horror prodigy Tommy Wirkola, and stars Jeremy Renner and Gemma Arterton, so the odds are reasonable. Finally, The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey sees Peter Jackson (and everybody else involved in the LOTR madness) revisiting Middle Earth. I expect abolutely nothing from this mind-numbingly boring property, so I won’t be disappointed in any way. On the plus side: the 48 fps images look good in the trailer, and in Martin Freeman it does star a personal favourite of mine.

 

The Award Darlings

You’d think that a book about a boy and a tiger in a little boat would be unfilmable, but Ang Lee decided to give Life of Pi a chance. In 3D. Also considered unfilmable was David Mitchell’s book Cloud Atlas, but Andy and Lana Wachowski, together with Tom Tykwer, decided to give it a try. However good the film may turn out to be, it won’t win prizes. It’s too weird probably. Much more conventional is Hyde Park on Hudson (dir. Roger Michell), about president Roosevelt (Bill Murray gunning for a career Oscar) receiving the King and Queen of England as his guests. Speaking of American presidents: Steven Spielberg’s biopic Lincoln stars Daniel Day-Lewis, so Bill Murray may have to wait for his Oscar a little longer. Another biopic that may score big is Hitchcock (dir. Sacha Gervasi), starring Anthony Hopkins and Helen Mirren. Already a favourite is Paul Thomas Anderson’s latest, the Joaquin Phoenix and Philip Seymour Hoffman starring The Master. Argo (dir. Ben Affleck) will be a contender, as will Les Miserables. The latest one is directed by Tom Hooper, who dug up quite some gold for The King’s Speech two years ago. And if the director is anything to go by, look out for Kathryn Bigelow’s Zero Dark Thirty, about the hunt for Osama Bin Laden. A new The Hurt Locker? We’ll have to wait and see.

Review: End of Watch (dir. David Ayer)

Story: Two uniform cops (Jake Gyllenhaal and Michael Pena) in Los Angeles’ dangerous South Central district start filming teir day-today routine. Soon, however, due to a combination of coincidence, ambition and good police work, they become targets of a cartel that has started operating in Los Angeles.

David Ayer is better known as a screenwriter than as a director. He wrote for such films as U-571, The Fast & the Furious and Training Day. And the DNA of especially these last two films is all over End of Watch. However, End of Watch is a curious new beast, reminding one also of all those ‘found-footage’ films that have come out the last couple of years, of the outstanding television show The Wire and, last but not least, of Kathryn Bigelow’s excellent The Hurt Locker.

End of Watch mostly takes place in cars, as we follow officers Brian Taylor and Mike Zavala on their daily patrols through South Central. Inbetween catching drug dealers and accidentally uncovering the operations of a Mexican cartel they banter, play jokes on each other and talk about their relationships, the women in their lives and the children they want to raise. The fact that these kids will have to grow up in a world overrun with drugs and violence does not seem to matter to them. Herein lies the comparison to The Hurt Locker: like that film, End of Watch is an examination of manhood; an examination of the bonds between men in the line of fire, of the tension between doing your job and being a hero. Gyllenhaal’s impressive opening monologue already makes us question: does this job attract a certain type of person, or does the job make you that person?

Comparisons to The Wire exist mostly in the visual style of the film. End of Watch shows the worst areas of Los Angeles uncompromising, as The Wire did for Baltimore. The cinematography is rough, direct and very much up close and personal. It references reality shows about police work as well as first person shooter games. Crucially, Ayer takes some time, at appropriate moments, to film more conventionally, allowing the viewer a bit of rest and a much needed deep breath. In addition to this challenging but exciting cinematography there is a sound design that really blows you away. Especially the sound of a burning house is breathtaking.

Jake Gyllenhaal shows an impressive range, and proves with this film that he is a serious actor, and not stupid eye-candy for fantasy-adventures (see the ill-judged Prince of Persia). But even more impressive is Michael Pena as his quieter, more restrained but probably more capable partner.

Where End of Watch falters, if at all, it is in the one-sided depiction of the War on Drugs. All the police officers are basically good guys, and all the drugs dealers are gun-toting maniacs (with one notable exception). This flaw makes the difference between the really good (End of Watch) and the excellent (The Hurt Locker and The Wire). Also, with The Hurt Locker I had the feeling that it was about more than what it was showing. It was not just about these men in that war. It was about war in general, and about the people attracted to it. End of Watch lacks such a subtext. It is about these guys in that neighbourhood. If Gyllenhaal’s opening monologue asks the question who these people are, or what makes them who they are, I am not certain End of Watch has a conclusive answer to that question.

Final verdict: An electrifying cop film. A careful study of two interesting, likable characters and a romping action flick at the same time. As an examination of the War on Drugs, or of police work in general, it is slightly flawed because of its narrow focus and one-sided representation. Nevertheless one of the surprising highlights of the year.

Review: The Bourne Legacy (dir. Tony Gilroy)

Story: Jeremy Renner is Alex Cross, another agent in the secret Treadstone project of the CIA. His superiors want him dead to cover up the project after Jason Bourne exposed it. Together with a doctor (Rachel Weisz) who is also on the kill list, Cross escapes and sets out to reclaim his life.

I have never been a big fan of the Bourne movies. I liked Robert Ludlum’s novels well enough, but I though that The Bourne Identity was a poor adaptation. The Bourne Supremacy and The Bourne Ultimatum, directed by the much lauded Paul Greengrass, took their titles from the novels, but nothing else. Supremacy and Ultimatum are widely considered to have changed the face of action films. But I never much cared for that new face. The shaky camera style that makes it impossible to keep up with what is happening in an action scene is in my opinion but a trick to conceal that the filmmaker does not know how to properly shoot an action scene.

(Proper action scenes, I think, are hardly shot anymore, now that this trick has become widespread. Even the James Bond movie Quantum of Solace was hampered by it. I much prefer old-fashioned action set pieces like those directed by Michael Mann or Philip Noyce)

Where I find Greengrass’ contribution to the Bourne series to be overrated, I must admit that I was a big fan of Matt Damon as Bourne. Over the years, I’ve grown into the idea of Damon as a bona fide character actor, rather than as a Hollywood pretty boy. But for the fourth film in the Bourne series, The Bourne Legacy, both Damon and Greengrass have not returned. Tony Gilroy is now in the director’s chair. He was one of the writers of the previous films and he directed the exciting thriller Micheal Clayton. And the leading man is now Jeremy Renner, the rising star of The Hurt Locker, Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol and The Avengers.

In The Bourne Legacy, Renner does a decent job with admittedly poor material. This film is shockingly underthought and underwritten. Entire plot strands and developments make no sense at all (including a lengthy opening scene in Alaska). Characters are introduced and dropped at a whim, or not used at all (why Joan Allen’s Pam Landy had to reappear is a mystery to me). Curiously, the action scenes were better than they ever were in the previous films. Especially the Manila motorbike chase is a spectacle the likes of which we have not seen since The Matrix Reloaded.

Verdicht: This film will entertain as long as you do not overthink it. Renner and Weisz are always a pleasure. There is some realy good action. But I can’t escape the thought that this was an idea for just another action movie first, and that the Bourne label got stuck onto it later, for marketing purposes only. And exactly that change has made this film such a mess.

Oscar’s logic: things to consider…

Tonight are the Oscars awarded, in a big ceremony in the Kodak theatre in Los Angeles. So over the last week(s) many people have tried to predict who is going to win. But what do we need to consider? Three types of Oscar logic work kinda against each other this year:

Oscar logic number 1: there is almost always one big favourite. This year that favourite is Michel Hazanavicius’  almost-silent black-and-white film The Artist. Last year it was The King’s Speech. Crucially, this big favourite will win awards, in the wake of winning best picture, almost automatically. Best Director and Best Original (or adapted, depending on the film) Screenplay for instance. Or some technical awards that other films might be more deserving of. So there is a chance that The Artist, apart from winning Best Film, will also win Best Director, Best Original Screenplay, Best Music, Best Art Direction, Best Costumes, Best Editing and best Cinematography. And of course Best Actor for Jean Dujardin and Best Supporting Actress for Berenice Bejo.

Oscar logic number 2: The industry has certain demands. You wouldn’t believe it, but Hollywood thinks it is in crisis. Because of the economical crisis everwhere else of course, and because of piracy. So box office success and industrial demands do influence the votes. If a film has hardly been seen by anyone, then kiss your chances goodbye. Sorry Glenn Close (nominated for Albert Nobbs), but that is the deal. As to industrial demands: In 2009-10, Avatar broke all kinds of box office records. So it won awards. Technical ones, mostly, but still. In a strange, counter-sentimental move against Avatar and 3D the important prizes of 2010 were won by the little-seen The Hurt Locker. But this year 3D must be proven a viable option for the future, now that legendary directors Steven Spielberg and Martin Scorsese have adopted the format. Since Spielberg’s The Adventures of Tintin was criminally neglected by the Academy, Scorsese’s Hugo may have a shot at some prizes, especially Editing and Cinematography.

Oscar logic number 3: On the wave of The Artist Dujardin and Bejo may win awards for their performances, but there are other factors to consider: Best Actor is a career prize. It usually goes to actors who have a long-standing reputation in Hollywood. To win, it has to be your time. Cue Jeff Bridges in 2010, Colin Firth in 2011 and now George Clooney in 2012. Or, very perhaps, Gary Oldman. In the supporting categories the Academy tends to reward eccentric, extravagant performances in socially ‘relevant’  films. So Mo’nique in 2010, for Precious, and Melissa Leo last year for The Fighter. And this year Octavia Spencer for The Help.

I do not know what will happen in Los Angeles tonight. But whatever the outcome, the three types of Oscar logic described above will play their parts.

Oscar logic number 4. Pixar wins Best Animated Film. Oh, wait, they are not nominated this year. ..

Where We Stand: Nine Months in the Multiplex

It is September. We’ve had the Oscars, Cannes and the blockbuster season, and this weekend saw the end of the Venice film festival.  So, most of what was to happen in film this year has already happened. Time for a little overview then.

Last year I kept lists of the best ten and the worst ten films of the year. I’ve done the same thing for this year so far. And to start off on a good note: this year’s worst films aren’t that much worse than last year’s worst films. 2011’s Clash of the Titans was Conan the Barbarian, in terms of noisy nonsense, but Conan still offered some fun. Last year we had a Sex and the City sequel, this year we had the third Transformers movie. Those two cancel each other out. The same goes for Sucker Punch and Prince of Persia, and for Get Low and Fair Game. The ‘worst films of 2011’ list, for all the dreadful terrors that are on it, is not my main concern.

I have two main concerns. The first one is the list of films that should have been on the ‘worst film’ list, but aren’t there, because the list is already filled. I’m thinking of Clint Eastwood’s Hereafter, of the superfluous The Eagle, of the failed Horrible Bosses and the incoherent The Rite (review forthcoming). That these films are now in the large bulk of ‘mediocre’ films is a problem.

My second concern is the ‘best films of 2011’ list. There are films on there that really don’t deserve to be there. Mainly because I am still to stumble upon anything resembling A Serious Man, or The Hurt Locker. True Grit, though good, was nowhere near the Coen’s best work, and Oscar grabber The King’s Speech felt strangely tame and artificial, despite outstanding performances.

So on this year’s ‘best of’ list, so far, we find such films as Rise of the Planet of the Apes and Rango. For a film to be simply exciting (Rise…) or simply funny (Rango), and for it to showcase impressive technological advances (both) is now good enough. Just compare: In 2010 the one animated movie on the list was Toy Story 3. Now it is Rango.

Of course The Fighter was excellent, and so was Black Swan. And Bridesmaids was fantastically funny, despite the excessive vomiting and diarrhea. Source Code is the closest we’ll get to an Inception this year. But it is the closest to it, not a match. Furthermore Bridesmaids doesn’t hold up to Four Lions or Kick Ass. And I am yet to find anything as emotionally charged as Winter’s Bone or El Secreto de Sus Ojos. Harry Potter 7.2 was satisfying, but not much more than that…

Nothing to feel really good about then? Well, Thor and Captain America: The First Avenger were not as bad as I expected them to be. They were surprisingly entertaining actually, apart from the action scenes. X-Men: First Class lived up to its expectations, and Fast Five was an outrageous guilty pleasure. These films kinda make up for the big let down of Pirates of the Carribean: On Stranger Tides.

But in conclusion, all in all? Quite too many films did not live up to potential or expectations or the sheer common decency of meeting the lowest level of quality you can still get away with. 2011 is just not good enough. Yet.

What’s left to look forward then? Well, the award films will start pouring in, with strong contenders in We Need To Talk About Kevin, Martha Marcy May Marlene, War Horse, The Help, The Iron Lady, We Bought a Zoo and The Ides of March. And perhaps the The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo remake. But I’m looking forward most to Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, which really should see Gary Oldman pick up a long overdue little gold statue.

Best of 2011 so far: Black Swan, The Fighter, The King’s Speech, True Grit, Rango, Source Code, Bridesmaids, Harry Potter 7.2, Rise of the Planet of the Apes and The Tree of Life.

Worst of 2011, so far: The Green Hornet, The Green Lantern, Paul, Pirates of the Carribean: On Stranger Tides, Transformers: Dark of the Moon, Unknown, Sucker Punch, Get Low, Conan the Barbarian and The Tree of Life.

Yes. Malick’s is in both categories. Everyone who has seen it will understand.

End of the year round-up: The Best Films of 2010* **

*Dutch release dates. Includes therefore The Hurt Locker and A Serious Man, but no Black Swan or 127 Hours.

** As I am no professional critic I have not seen everything. Films such as The Social Network, Scott Pilgrim and Sex and the City 2 have so far managed to elude me.

10        Centurion

Beautifully shot chase film by horror specialist Neill Marshall, who learned exactly the right lessons from Gladiator and who “masters the art of the graceful decapitation” like no-one else.

9          Four Lions

Proves that you can turn even the most touchiest of subjects, Muslim-terrorism, into comedy-gold. At the expense of the characters perhaps, but that is at no point a killjoy in this film.

 

8          Kick Ass!

Violent, geeky and morally questionable, but sooo funny. Extra credits for a stand-out Nicholas Cage performance.

 

7          Catfish

The controversy over the truthfulness of this documentary is not really that interesting, from a creative point of view. Catfish is an amazing story about very interesting people, and the ‘facebook’ film that The Social Network is not.

 

6          Toy Story 3

Would probably have ended up higher if I had an emotional investment in the series, which I did not have. Excellent characters, great voice work, beautiful music and an appropriate theme for a satisfying final chapter.

 

5          A Winter’s Bone

Who could’ve thought that a film could be deeply depressing and fiercely uplifting at the same time? Debra Granik proves it can be done, owing a big debt to Jennifer Lawrence superior performance.

 

4          A Serious Man

Best. Coen Brothers Film. Ever.

 

3          Inception

A visual and narratological masterpiece. 2^nd and 3^rd viewings allow for the emotional heart to find its place. Perhaps the most important film of the year, because Nolan shows that very expensive action films need not be stupid. Even Michal Bay now wants his next Transformers film to be smarter.

 

2          The Hurt Locker

Testosterone and adrenaline fuelled “small” film about big issues. Its focus on character rather than politics makes it intensely emotional and, surprisingly, very political. “Exactly 17.3 times better than Avatar”, its big awards-competitor.

 

1          El Secreto de Sus Ojos

Excellent character study, harrowing thriller and portrait of a society. El Secreto de Sus Ojos has no flaws. Its devastating climax lingers and haunts your dreams. The film was the big surprise of 2010’s Foreign Language Oscar category, and of the entire year for that matter.

An agenda where the heart should be – the ‘Green Zone’ review

Green Zone feels a bit outdated. It is, partly for that reason, also not very effective as a political commentary. It is more The Bourne Ultimatum than United 93, when compared to director Paul Greengrass’ best known other films. Not a bad film however. As an action film and a conspiracy-thriller, it is very satisfying.

 

Green Zone, lightly based on the non-fiction book Life in the Emerald City by Washington Post reporter Rajiv Chandrasekaran, tells the story of Roy Miller (Matt Damon), an army officer charged with finding weapons of mass destruction in recently liberated/occupied Baghdad. Of course he does not find them, and there the plot of the film starts off, when Miller is brought in by CIA agent Martin Brown (the always admirable Brendan Gleeson) to uncover the plot that lead to the war in Iraq. More needs not be said about the plot. It is sufficiently engaging for the length of the film but also instantly forgettable, inevitably lost track off during frantic night-time chases in labyrinthine Baghdad. The dialogue is a bit over-explaining, but just about exactly-not-too-political to become annoying. Commendable performances, next to Gleeson’s, are given by Amy Ryan as an American journalist (ab)used by government snake (typical Greengrass character) Poundstone (Greg Kinnear) and by the unknown Khalid Abdalla, who plays an Iraqi ex-soldier translating for Miller.

Three things more need to be said of Green Zone. The first concerns Matt Damon. For if this film makes one thing perfectly clear, then it is the fact that Damon does not work as an action or drama protagonist. He is a blank sheet, exemplified by his face, which is as immediately recognizable as that of any Hollywood star, but as incapable of emotion as that of a computer game avatar. In the odd example of the Bourne films this worked – as Bourne is the perfect soldier without a memory – but in any other case it stands in between Damon and any empathy from the audience. Matt Damon is a much more enjoyable actor in glamorous and nonsensical comedies as The Informant! and the Ocean films, or as a supporting actor in for instance Invictus. He is therefore also more of a Steven Soderbergh actor than a Paul Greengrass actor. Despite Greengrass’ and Damon’s plans to make more movies together.

The second thing to be mentioned is the hand-held ‘shaky’ cinematography, by now a signature mark of Paul Greengrass. Together with the gritty, unglamorous look and nature of the Bourne films it has transformed the genre of action films over the last decade. It even seriously endangered the future of the James Bond franchise to such a degree that the last Bond film (Quantum of Solace) was accused by some critics of being a Bourne rip-off. Green Zone is a master-class of everything that can be good about this type of cinematography, at least, the first hour-and-a-half is. During these first two acts the audience is brought in close contact with the reality of post-invasion Iraq and the surrealism of the ‘green zone’, where the Allies set up headquarters. However, the final act, basically one long chase through night-time Baghdad, shows its major flaw: the inability to keep track of characters and actions leads to an inability to be engaged with the story and to care for the protagonist. Green Zone is therefore also a case-study in how far this style of filming can successfully go.

The last thing to be said about Green Zone regards the inevitable comparison with multiple Oscar winner The Hurt Locker. A comparison that does not end favorably for Green Zone. It has a much higher profile and budget, but fails to blow you away, or even cling onto you for more than a day. Its politics are severely outdated: WMDs (or the lack of them) are old news, booby-trap bombs are still an everyday concern in Iraq and Afghanistan. This is even more painful if you consider that relevant politics is what Greengrass aims for. Where The Hurt Locker has a heart, Green Zone has an agenda. That, taken together with Roy Miller’s (or Matt Damon’s) emptiness, is ultimately symbolized in the final shot. Instead of a medium shot of the protagonist off to dismantle another bomb (Jeremy Renner in The Hurt Locker) we get an establishing helicopter shot of working Iraqi oil refineries. Do you get the point? Do you get the point now?

Give it Oscars! – The ‘The Hurt Locker’ Review

William James is a dedicated employee. He lives for his job. He is creative, audacious and extremely succesful. Which means that he is still alive. Because his job is not an ordinary one: he diffuses bombs in Baghdad, for the US Military. His subordinates, who have to protect him while he does his work, are not so happy with his unpredictable behavior, but his commanding officer almost admires William. The Hurt Locker follows James (Jeremy Renner) and his colleagues during the last thirty-five days of their tour in a series of ever more suspenseful encounters with bombs, snipers and possibly innocent civilians.

Kathryn Bigelow’s film is nominated for nine Oscars, just as Avatar, made by her former husband James Cameron. But it is exactly 17.3 times as good as Avatar. Unlike its competitor it is exciting, thrilling, adrenaline arousing actually. It feels incredibly realistic, not in the least because of the shaky cinematography, which was popularized for action films in the Paul Greengrass ‘Jason Bourne’ films. It therefore also makes one curious about Greengrass’ new film, The Green Zone, which also deals with the American occupation of Iraq.

The Hurt Locker is just over two hours long, but feels much shorter. This in contrast to Avatar, which was about forty-five minutes longer but felt like a week. Also, it does not have 3-D graphics, but three dimensional characters. Jeremy Renner stands out as William James, but Anthony Mackie and Brian Geraghty are very impressive as his ambitious but insecure subordinates.

The Hurt Locker is a film about men, but it’s not a film just for men. And there we stumble upon an interesting paradox regarding both Bigelow and James Cameron: the latter is often characterised as a filmmaker with a knack for strong female performances and characters. Aliens’ Ripley for instance, Sarah Connor from the Terminator films. Or even Kate Winslet’s character from Titanic. Also, in Avatar, the best performances (or at least those that managed to stand out despite everything else in the film) were those of Zoe Saldana and Sigourney Weaver. Kathryn Bigelow on the other hand has proven herself very able when it comes to squeezing great performances out of male actors. Renner is still a relative unknown, but others are Liam Neeson and Harrison Ford in K-19, Ralph Fiennes in Strange Days and Patrick Swayze and Keanu Reeves in Point Break.

As remarkable of the current showdown between Cameron and Bigelow, or Avatar and The Hurt Locker, at this year’s Oscar ceremony may therefore be, it is nonetheless a rather predictable one. Experts agree that Avatar will pick up Best Picture and Bigelow will take the Best Director statue home. The somewhat plagued movie industry needs the biggest grossing film ever to win this prize, and Bigelow would be the first female director to win. Fortunately, the Academy has surprised us before, both in negative (Crash’s win over Brokeback Mountain anyone?) and positively (getting Scorsese his due for the frankly not so great The Departed).

I say fortunately, because, as I argued: The Hurt Locker is exactly 17.3 times as good as Avatar. It is gripping, exciting, suspenseful, emotional and politically relevant without taking sides or scoring for open goal. All things that Avatar is not. It is quite surprising actually that conservative American critics dubbed the film anti-American, for the soldiers themselves appear to be humane and dedicated, and they show a heart for the suffering of the Iraqi people. The dramatic and emotional core of the film is actually William James’ relation to both his own son and a Baghdad street kid with whom he plays soccer.

Please, dear Academy members. Give The Hurt Locker all the Awards it so much deserves over that other film that was nominated so often. What’s its name again? I forgot, because I just saw one of the best films of the year.