Yes, David Fincher’s The Social Network is about Facebook. But that’s sort of like saying that Star Wars is about space flight: it’s in there, but it’s not really the meat of the film. The Social Network is a smart, quick-moving look at the creative process and its collateral damage, and the high cost of success and fame. It wouldn’t matter if the bright young men at the film’s center had invented a new light bulb or a coffee maker – how the invention happens and what happens because of it are what matter here.
The film follows Mark Zuckerberg (Jesse Eisenberg) in his rise from Harvard sophomore to head of the world’s favorite networking site. It begins not just in the middle of things, but in the middle of a conversation. Zuckerberg is having a talk with his girlfriend in a bar, and the talk goes badly in most ways such a talk can go badly. They break up, and Zuckerberg sulks his way back to his dorm. With a stomach full of beer and a mouthful of sour grapes, he goes online. First he turns to his blog, writing angry slurs about the girl’s family and figure. But the judgmental nature of his posts gives him an idea. Zuckerberg hacks the pictures out of the online “facebooks” of Harvard houses, and, using a formula his best friend uses to rank chess opponents, creates Facemash, a site where men can rank the attractiveness of women. It’s like fantasy football for looks, and in a matter of hours has become so popular with undergraduate males that the web traffic crashes Harvard’s network.
The site earns Zuckerberg the hatred of Harvard’s women, and probation from its administrative board, but it also does what he hoped it would – makes him famous as a hacker. He is soon approached by Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss (both Armie Hammer), alpha-male twins who are star rowers but also have a great idea for an exclusive Harvard networking site (“The Harvard Connection”). They have clout, but no programming skills—but Zuckerberg does. Their idea gives him his own, and Zuckerberg proceeds to stonewall the Winklevosses while developing his own networking site, “The Facebook.” As the twins stew, Zuckerberg talks his friend Eduardo Saverin (Andrew Garfield) into bankrolling the spread of The Facebook – he’ll even bring Saverin onboard as “Chief Financial Officer.” The site, of course, is off like a rocket--so much so that it lands on the radar or erstwhile Napster inventor and professional schmoozer Sean Parker (a delightfully shallow Justin Timberlake), who promises to take Zuckerberg to the big time. Of course, this may mean an upgrade from that old staff of friends and roomies, but so it goes.
That it doesn’t go smoothly is more or less well known. The film is framed by twin depositions in lawsuits Zuckerberg later faced from the angry Winklevoss twins and the resentful Saverin. How much of this is “true?’ Hard to say. The filmmakers didn’t have much contact with the real players, and that’s ultimately to the film’s benefit. This is a story, not a documentary, and Fincher and screenwriter Aaron Sorkin focus less on facts than on the effects of the decisions Zuckerberg, et. al. made. The Social Network feels like a cross between a story of creativity ala Shakespeare in Love and a story where a group of guys dreams up a caper that gets them in over their heads (like the first two Guy Ritchie films). The “social network” at issue here is not so much the website as the people who surround it. Of course, one of those “networks” survives while the other dissolves. That friendships are destroyed over a product whose chief activity is “friending” others only adds a helping of delicious irony.
Of course, a story about guys writing code and having conversations isn’t necessarily riveting stuff. Fincher and Sorkin, however, prove to be exactly the team to pull it off. Sorkin has always written well about writers, and Fincher, in Fight Club, famously brought one man’s imaginings to wonderful life. Together with their actors, the two craft a tale that moves at a breakneck pace, maintains interest, and gives you things to think about long afterward. It helps that both take a more direct approach than in times past. Sorkin’s wordy script has all the music and crackle of a fireworks display (when a partner of the Winklevoss twins wants to “hire the Sopranos to beat the s--- out of” Zuckerberg, one of the twins responds, “We can do that ourselves. I’m six-five, 220, and there’s two of me!”). Fortunately, the writer avoids the bombast that has marred some of his later TV outings. Likewise, Fincher—who can do visual tricks and pyrotechnics with the best—tones it way down. The best compliment I can give him is that I didn’t notice the direction, but every shot felt right. The score, by Trent Reznor (yes, that Trent Reznor) and Atticus Ross, provides energy and drive without grabbing too much attention. This is a very well-made film.
It helps that the performers all create well-rounded (let’s avoid “real,” for the obvious reasons) people. We know Eisenberg can do geeky and chatty, and those skills serve him well as the brilliant and argumentative Zuckerberg. But he also brings a coldness to the part, and its to his credit that we’re never sure how much of that chillness is real hard-heartedness, how much is defense mechanism, and how much is the simple indifference of a man who lives mostly in his head. It’s a performance that’s a little pathetic, a little creepy, a little off-putting, and a lot watchable. Garfield’s Saverin is more conventionally likeable – a well-dressed economics major who makes more in stocks than most students make in their summer jobs. The smart partner everyone ignores has been done before, but Garfield makes it clear that it’s Saverin’s morality that is ultimately violated, not his business sense. He’s cheated, yes—but he’s also heartbroken. Timberlake is one of the film’s small joys – his Parker is all surface glitz and buried insecurity. This, too, could have been a cliché character – the “playboy entrepreneur” – but Timberlake lets us see that Parker, though more gregarious, craves acceptance just as much as Zuckerberg. Parker blows more cash, but neither man is really in this for the money. It’s deeper than that. Hammer, with many an assist from a double and camera tricks, is great fun as the Winklevoss twins, and Rooney Mara is a nice breath of common sense as the girl who first calls Zuckerberg on his flaws and starts the face-ball rolling. One would hope she got a cut of the Facebook profits—that is, if she were real.
Much has been made of whether or not this film, with its Machiavellian plotting, will “tarnish” Zuckerberg’s reputation. I doubt it. For one thing, no one associated with the film ever talked to him, so there’s no way this can be an accurate representation. And for another, the knowledge that the creator of a popular product is a jerk rarely diminishes the public’s enthusiasm for either one – just ask Simon Cowell. The Facebook connection makes The Social Network timely. The film’s deeper themes of inspiration, loyalty, betrayal, and the price of fame make it timeless. You don’t have to know or use Facebook to enjoy this movie. It’s simply well-crafted, from start to finish. I suppose it’s a compliment to the film and its subject matter to sum up in Facebook terms: I liked this. I suggest you do, too.
Sunday, October 3, 2010
Monday, September 20, 2010
Get Low (2010)
The old hermit rides his mule cart into town. He says he’s looking to arrange a funeral. His own. The kicker? He wants it now, while he’s still alive to appreciate it. The local priest is a little uneasy about this. Not the town undertaker, though. It’s bad when a funeral home is hurting for business. So he’ll take the request. But how do you plan a “funeral party” for a live man who hasn’t spoken to anyone in 40 years? Who can possibly deliver a eulogy? Is it still a eulogy, if the guy is standing right there?
This odd circumstance (based, I learn, on a somewhat true tall tale of a Tennessee man who attended his own massive funeral) is the basis for Aaron Schneider’s film Get Low. The movie, set in 1930s Tennessee, does in fact unfold like something Mark Twain might have told, with a little bit of rough humor, a little bit of mystery, and a whole lot of comment on what makes people tick. The old hermit is Felix Bush (Robert Duvall), who sports a beard like an Old Testament prophet and shoots trespassers like a nervous moonshiner. The undertaker is Frank Quinn (Bill Murray), a slick transplant from Chicago, who knows very well that bodies ride lighter in the hearse when relieved of heavy burdens of cash. Frank’s assistant is Buddy (Lucas Black), a good-hearted new father who spends a lot of time trying to work out what these two shifty older fellows are on about. Also in the mix are Mattie Darrow (Sissy Spacek), a friend of Frank’s and one-time girlfriend of Felix (back before the beard), and a pair of pastors: town priest Gus Horton (Gerald McRaney), who doesn’t quite know what to make of Felix, and Illinois preacher Charlie Jackson (Bill Cobbs), who knows exactly what to make of Felix, but doesn’t want to say. There’s also the matter of the woman who appears in a faded photo on Felix’s wall, and a story about a man falling out of a house on fire.
There’s really very little plot. Felix’s odd request, his odder manner, and his odder-still history serve as excuses for the characters to bounce off each other and, in the process, explore themes of life, death, forgiveness, and redemption. There are mystery elements (the identity of the woman in the photo, for instance), but the answers are seldom surprising. The fact of knowledge matters less to this film than what people do with knowledge. For example, at first Felix wants anyone who knows a story about him to come to his funeral and tell it. It turns out, though, that some stories are more interesting to Felix himself than others. There’s something he needs to hear. What it is matters less than why he needs to hear it, and who he needs to hear it from. Get Low evokes thought, not surprise, and is better for that fact.
Really, though, the film is about the acting. Duvall, Murray, and Spacek could read recipe cards for an hour and a half and still be entertaining. None of the three breaks new ground here. Duvall’s done the complex loner before, Spacek’s done the sweet-but-tough belle before, and Murray’s done the world-weary quipster before. But watching these three together is like watching three star athletes run time-tested plays: the joy is in the execution. Duvall and Murray in particular are experts at wringing meaning out of a single grunt or half-smile. In lesser hands, Felix Bush would be ridiculous—but with Duvall in the role, he’s real. Cobbs brings a nice authority to Rev. Jackson. Black is adequate as Buddy (often saddled with needless reaction shots). The part mostly calls for him to be the optimistic foil to the two grumpy old men, but, exactly because those two old men are played by Duvall and Murray, Black’s performance often seems to lack depth. The film wants us to think the character has learned something by the end, but the performance doesn’t show it. McRaney, himself an actor of some physical presence, is criminally underused here. I wonder if some of his part ended up on the cutting room floor.
The rest of the film isn’t as solid as the acting. There are some strange shifts in tone, and certain plot strands that seem dropped for no good reason. The two opening sequences – a flashback to the burning house, and a nearly wordless bit where some kids who sneak onto Felix’s land learn the error of their ways—show a creative spark that soon fades into more pedestrian modes of storytelling. Nothing is wrong with the look of the film – the costumes and setting are right on target. It’s just that the film overall lacks a certain unity. This is one of those movies that seems not to trust itself, and that’s a shame given the quality of the talent involved. The style of the piece just isn’t up to the level of the acting it contains.
Still, there’s a lot to like here. There’s nothing wrong with watching an expert cast go through the paces, and it’s nice to see a film that remembers that the most special of effects are those created by human voices and faces. Get Low is also remarkable for two other reasons: in a culture increasingly obsessed with shallow youth, here’s a film about complex older characters; and the movie is actually about serious things – about faith, about grief, about dealing with the past, about how if it takes a village to raise a kid, it may also take one to understand a grown man.
I find that I like the film the more I think about it after the fact, which is both a compliment and a criticism – a compliment to the content, a criticism of the experience itself. This is a film that makes you think, and for that, and for the performances, I can recommend it. It’s a good film, but not a great one—a wry, soulful look at some of the dustier corners of the human psyche. I’m serious about the Twain comparison. Many books get turned into movies these days. Get Low is that rare movie that might actually work just as well as a book. Especially if you could get Duvall, Murray, and Spacek to read the CD version. Or those recipe cards. I’m in either way.
This odd circumstance (based, I learn, on a somewhat true tall tale of a Tennessee man who attended his own massive funeral) is the basis for Aaron Schneider’s film Get Low. The movie, set in 1930s Tennessee, does in fact unfold like something Mark Twain might have told, with a little bit of rough humor, a little bit of mystery, and a whole lot of comment on what makes people tick. The old hermit is Felix Bush (Robert Duvall), who sports a beard like an Old Testament prophet and shoots trespassers like a nervous moonshiner. The undertaker is Frank Quinn (Bill Murray), a slick transplant from Chicago, who knows very well that bodies ride lighter in the hearse when relieved of heavy burdens of cash. Frank’s assistant is Buddy (Lucas Black), a good-hearted new father who spends a lot of time trying to work out what these two shifty older fellows are on about. Also in the mix are Mattie Darrow (Sissy Spacek), a friend of Frank’s and one-time girlfriend of Felix (back before the beard), and a pair of pastors: town priest Gus Horton (Gerald McRaney), who doesn’t quite know what to make of Felix, and Illinois preacher Charlie Jackson (Bill Cobbs), who knows exactly what to make of Felix, but doesn’t want to say. There’s also the matter of the woman who appears in a faded photo on Felix’s wall, and a story about a man falling out of a house on fire.
There’s really very little plot. Felix’s odd request, his odder manner, and his odder-still history serve as excuses for the characters to bounce off each other and, in the process, explore themes of life, death, forgiveness, and redemption. There are mystery elements (the identity of the woman in the photo, for instance), but the answers are seldom surprising. The fact of knowledge matters less to this film than what people do with knowledge. For example, at first Felix wants anyone who knows a story about him to come to his funeral and tell it. It turns out, though, that some stories are more interesting to Felix himself than others. There’s something he needs to hear. What it is matters less than why he needs to hear it, and who he needs to hear it from. Get Low evokes thought, not surprise, and is better for that fact.
Really, though, the film is about the acting. Duvall, Murray, and Spacek could read recipe cards for an hour and a half and still be entertaining. None of the three breaks new ground here. Duvall’s done the complex loner before, Spacek’s done the sweet-but-tough belle before, and Murray’s done the world-weary quipster before. But watching these three together is like watching three star athletes run time-tested plays: the joy is in the execution. Duvall and Murray in particular are experts at wringing meaning out of a single grunt or half-smile. In lesser hands, Felix Bush would be ridiculous—but with Duvall in the role, he’s real. Cobbs brings a nice authority to Rev. Jackson. Black is adequate as Buddy (often saddled with needless reaction shots). The part mostly calls for him to be the optimistic foil to the two grumpy old men, but, exactly because those two old men are played by Duvall and Murray, Black’s performance often seems to lack depth. The film wants us to think the character has learned something by the end, but the performance doesn’t show it. McRaney, himself an actor of some physical presence, is criminally underused here. I wonder if some of his part ended up on the cutting room floor.
The rest of the film isn’t as solid as the acting. There are some strange shifts in tone, and certain plot strands that seem dropped for no good reason. The two opening sequences – a flashback to the burning house, and a nearly wordless bit where some kids who sneak onto Felix’s land learn the error of their ways—show a creative spark that soon fades into more pedestrian modes of storytelling. Nothing is wrong with the look of the film – the costumes and setting are right on target. It’s just that the film overall lacks a certain unity. This is one of those movies that seems not to trust itself, and that’s a shame given the quality of the talent involved. The style of the piece just isn’t up to the level of the acting it contains.
Still, there’s a lot to like here. There’s nothing wrong with watching an expert cast go through the paces, and it’s nice to see a film that remembers that the most special of effects are those created by human voices and faces. Get Low is also remarkable for two other reasons: in a culture increasingly obsessed with shallow youth, here’s a film about complex older characters; and the movie is actually about serious things – about faith, about grief, about dealing with the past, about how if it takes a village to raise a kid, it may also take one to understand a grown man.
I find that I like the film the more I think about it after the fact, which is both a compliment and a criticism – a compliment to the content, a criticism of the experience itself. This is a film that makes you think, and for that, and for the performances, I can recommend it. It’s a good film, but not a great one—a wry, soulful look at some of the dustier corners of the human psyche. I’m serious about the Twain comparison. Many books get turned into movies these days. Get Low is that rare movie that might actually work just as well as a book. Especially if you could get Duvall, Murray, and Spacek to read the CD version. Or those recipe cards. I’m in either way.
Sunday, July 18, 2010
Inception (2010)
In graduate school, I read a book called The Craft of Thought by Mary Carruthers, which explained the way in which medieval monks were able to memorize enormous quantities of Biblical text. The monks constructed vast spaces in their minds—“rooms” in which they could store verses. To remember, they mentally walked through the structures they’d made: one room held, say, the Psalms. Another held the Gospel of Luke. And so on. Christopher Nolan’s Inception takes that idea of mental structures and uses it as the basis of a heist movie. What if a person’s mental “rooms” could be invaded by outsiders, and looted for their contents? And what if someone started messing with the architecture? Could you alter a person’s mind not with external suggestion, but from inside? What would be the consequences for them? For you?
The world of Inception accepts that these things are possible. The “extraction” of ideas from a person’s head, by sneaking into the virtual reality of their subconscious while they dream (minds are more vulnerable then), is available as form of corporate espionage—the ultimate in intellectual property theft. One of the best in the business is a man named Cobb (Leonardo DiCaprio), whose services have been retained by wealthy energy company owner Saito (Ken Watanabe) in order to mentally thieve some secrets. That job doesn’t go quite as planned, but Saito likes what he sees and offers Cobb a different job: not extraction (the theft of an idea) but inception (the planting of an idea). Saito wants to convince the heir to a powerful rival corporation (Cillian Murphy) to break up the empire he is set to inherit from his dying father. Inception is complicated (the film explains) because the mind, like the body, resists foreign entities. The mind will attack invading thoughts the way antibodies attack viruses. Most in the extraction business think inception is essentially impossible, but Cobb has reason to believe otherwise. Plus, Saito offers a juicy reward: he has the money and pull to clear up some nasty lingering legal business involving Cobb’s wife (Marion Cotillard) and children. Cobb takes the assignment.
What follows is essentially a caper picture, though the exact details are best left for you to discover, as Inception is at least as much about procedures as results. As usual, the mastermind—Cobb—assembles a crack team. Cobb’s team includes his resourceful right-hand man Arthur (Joseph Gordon-Levitt); a “forger” named Eames (Tom Hardy) whose specialty is faking personalities rather than documents; Yusuf (Dileep Rao), an expert in brain chemistry; and Ariadne (Ellen Page) a brilliant young architecture student who will design the mental space in which to trap the mark. As usual, the basic plan for the heist is explained beforehand, setting up the rules of the game, as it were. And then the careful plan goes into action. But you know what they say about best-laid plans…
What elevates Inception above most action-heist pictures is its focus on the mind, and I mean that in two senses. First, of course, is that minds are the arenas of adventure here, as characters jump between levels—and owners—of consciousness much the way James Bond jumps between exotic locales. But the movie also aims (a rarity these days) at the audience’s minds. This is an action film, yes, but it requires real attention. It may not be quite the mind game that the trailers (or a few stylistic winks by director Nolan) try to make it, but you sit through this on autopilot at your peril. And like Nolan’s immensely popular The Dark Knight, Inception manages to hint at—if not adequately address—some bigger themes amidst all the robbery, gunplay, and special effects.
And the effects are impressive. The “mental spaces” can be engineered in ways that real-life physics would make impossible: cities fold up on themselves, cliffs and buildings melt and rotate, and passageways shift and emerge in ways that would make Hogwarts jealous. Nolan makes excellent use of the visual medium here to represent subjective consciousness. I can’t imagine this story being told in another format, and that’s a compliment. Inception is the second movie I’ve recently seen that really showed me a different world onscreen—the other was Avatar—and its also the first movie to take the groundbreaking effects in films like Dark City and The Matrix as foundations to build upon rather than templates to copy. The filmmakers also deserve credit for putting the thing together. At one point, the characters are immersed in at least three levels of mental world, but we never lose track of what is happening in which level.
With a cast that features the names already mentioned, along with supporting ringers Pete Postlethwaite, Tom Berenger, and Michael Caine, it’s hard to go astray. The acting is competent across the board. Gordon-Levitt continues to nudge the boundaries of his range, and is good here as Cobb’s more practical foil. Murphy, who knows his way around unsettling situations, plays it straighter than usual this time. Hardy and Rao get to produce some of the better-deserved of the film’s snickers. Page’s role is in some ways the most obvious, as the neophyte who gets trained in mental espionage, and Cotillard’s role is in many ways the most complex, for reasons best left unexplained here. The heaviest acting burden, however, falls on DiCaprio. Cobb has the most to do both in terms of plot and character development, and must seem, at different times, both trustworthy and untrustworthy as a barometer of what is going on. Yes, he’s an expert in the mind—but as in most fields, even experts have difficulty applying their insights to themselves. This plays to DiCaprio’s strengths: I find the actor is always best when he can play his tendency toward bravado off some nagging uncertainties, letting his narrow features suggest equal parts slyness and confusion. That’s the case here. DiCaprio sometimes brings depth to parts that don’t require it, creating muddled characters—but a little depth and muddle is just right for Cobb. I believe him when he says he’s improvising—up to the point where I don’t. And that’s as it should be.
Some grumbling is already beginning about the nature of the “dreams” represented in Inception—that they’re too stable and logical to be true “dreams.” Of course they are. As author Neil Gaiman notes, “dream logic is not story logic,” and Nolan has a story to tell. A literal visual transcription of a dream would be a chaotic mess. But it’s worth remembering two things here. First, the mental worlds in Inception are not true “dreams” at all, but artificial mazes created by Cobb’s team. Dreaming is only the issue because that’s when the mind lets its defenses down. Second, and more important, dreams do seem logical when we’re in them (as the movie points out), and that logic is highly subjective to the person dreaming. What Inception is really after is how we create reality—how ideas take root and what effects they have in both the long and short term. Every one of us, like Cobb and his team, try to create worlds our minds can navigate while protecting our deeper secrets. That my world and your world might conflict is, in some sense, the dynamic that powers this movie. As is the idea that my world might conflict with itself. Do we plan it that way? No. But you know what they say about best-laid plans.
Inception itself may not represent a perfect plan. It tries a little too hard to surprise us, and the fact that a few elements drop out along the way is either a flaw or an illustration of dream logic (I’m not sure which). The movie itself is like an intriguing dream: interestingly made, enjoyable to the senses, and equal parts tense and simply entertaining. And if you aren’t sure what it all adds up to when it’s over, at least it was fun to go through. There’s craft and thought here, and I much prefer an action film that plays with my mind to one that forces me to turn it off. Is Inception the stuff dreams are made of? No. The stuff box-office hits are made of? That’s more likely.
The world of Inception accepts that these things are possible. The “extraction” of ideas from a person’s head, by sneaking into the virtual reality of their subconscious while they dream (minds are more vulnerable then), is available as form of corporate espionage—the ultimate in intellectual property theft. One of the best in the business is a man named Cobb (Leonardo DiCaprio), whose services have been retained by wealthy energy company owner Saito (Ken Watanabe) in order to mentally thieve some secrets. That job doesn’t go quite as planned, but Saito likes what he sees and offers Cobb a different job: not extraction (the theft of an idea) but inception (the planting of an idea). Saito wants to convince the heir to a powerful rival corporation (Cillian Murphy) to break up the empire he is set to inherit from his dying father. Inception is complicated (the film explains) because the mind, like the body, resists foreign entities. The mind will attack invading thoughts the way antibodies attack viruses. Most in the extraction business think inception is essentially impossible, but Cobb has reason to believe otherwise. Plus, Saito offers a juicy reward: he has the money and pull to clear up some nasty lingering legal business involving Cobb’s wife (Marion Cotillard) and children. Cobb takes the assignment.
What follows is essentially a caper picture, though the exact details are best left for you to discover, as Inception is at least as much about procedures as results. As usual, the mastermind—Cobb—assembles a crack team. Cobb’s team includes his resourceful right-hand man Arthur (Joseph Gordon-Levitt); a “forger” named Eames (Tom Hardy) whose specialty is faking personalities rather than documents; Yusuf (Dileep Rao), an expert in brain chemistry; and Ariadne (Ellen Page) a brilliant young architecture student who will design the mental space in which to trap the mark. As usual, the basic plan for the heist is explained beforehand, setting up the rules of the game, as it were. And then the careful plan goes into action. But you know what they say about best-laid plans…
What elevates Inception above most action-heist pictures is its focus on the mind, and I mean that in two senses. First, of course, is that minds are the arenas of adventure here, as characters jump between levels—and owners—of consciousness much the way James Bond jumps between exotic locales. But the movie also aims (a rarity these days) at the audience’s minds. This is an action film, yes, but it requires real attention. It may not be quite the mind game that the trailers (or a few stylistic winks by director Nolan) try to make it, but you sit through this on autopilot at your peril. And like Nolan’s immensely popular The Dark Knight, Inception manages to hint at—if not adequately address—some bigger themes amidst all the robbery, gunplay, and special effects.
And the effects are impressive. The “mental spaces” can be engineered in ways that real-life physics would make impossible: cities fold up on themselves, cliffs and buildings melt and rotate, and passageways shift and emerge in ways that would make Hogwarts jealous. Nolan makes excellent use of the visual medium here to represent subjective consciousness. I can’t imagine this story being told in another format, and that’s a compliment. Inception is the second movie I’ve recently seen that really showed me a different world onscreen—the other was Avatar—and its also the first movie to take the groundbreaking effects in films like Dark City and The Matrix as foundations to build upon rather than templates to copy. The filmmakers also deserve credit for putting the thing together. At one point, the characters are immersed in at least three levels of mental world, but we never lose track of what is happening in which level.
With a cast that features the names already mentioned, along with supporting ringers Pete Postlethwaite, Tom Berenger, and Michael Caine, it’s hard to go astray. The acting is competent across the board. Gordon-Levitt continues to nudge the boundaries of his range, and is good here as Cobb’s more practical foil. Murphy, who knows his way around unsettling situations, plays it straighter than usual this time. Hardy and Rao get to produce some of the better-deserved of the film’s snickers. Page’s role is in some ways the most obvious, as the neophyte who gets trained in mental espionage, and Cotillard’s role is in many ways the most complex, for reasons best left unexplained here. The heaviest acting burden, however, falls on DiCaprio. Cobb has the most to do both in terms of plot and character development, and must seem, at different times, both trustworthy and untrustworthy as a barometer of what is going on. Yes, he’s an expert in the mind—but as in most fields, even experts have difficulty applying their insights to themselves. This plays to DiCaprio’s strengths: I find the actor is always best when he can play his tendency toward bravado off some nagging uncertainties, letting his narrow features suggest equal parts slyness and confusion. That’s the case here. DiCaprio sometimes brings depth to parts that don’t require it, creating muddled characters—but a little depth and muddle is just right for Cobb. I believe him when he says he’s improvising—up to the point where I don’t. And that’s as it should be.
Some grumbling is already beginning about the nature of the “dreams” represented in Inception—that they’re too stable and logical to be true “dreams.” Of course they are. As author Neil Gaiman notes, “dream logic is not story logic,” and Nolan has a story to tell. A literal visual transcription of a dream would be a chaotic mess. But it’s worth remembering two things here. First, the mental worlds in Inception are not true “dreams” at all, but artificial mazes created by Cobb’s team. Dreaming is only the issue because that’s when the mind lets its defenses down. Second, and more important, dreams do seem logical when we’re in them (as the movie points out), and that logic is highly subjective to the person dreaming. What Inception is really after is how we create reality—how ideas take root and what effects they have in both the long and short term. Every one of us, like Cobb and his team, try to create worlds our minds can navigate while protecting our deeper secrets. That my world and your world might conflict is, in some sense, the dynamic that powers this movie. As is the idea that my world might conflict with itself. Do we plan it that way? No. But you know what they say about best-laid plans.
Inception itself may not represent a perfect plan. It tries a little too hard to surprise us, and the fact that a few elements drop out along the way is either a flaw or an illustration of dream logic (I’m not sure which). The movie itself is like an intriguing dream: interestingly made, enjoyable to the senses, and equal parts tense and simply entertaining. And if you aren’t sure what it all adds up to when it’s over, at least it was fun to go through. There’s craft and thought here, and I much prefer an action film that plays with my mind to one that forces me to turn it off. Is Inception the stuff dreams are made of? No. The stuff box-office hits are made of? That’s more likely.
Sunday, May 23, 2010
Robin Hood (2010)
Seems like any hero worth his salt these days is getting a ‘reboot’ or an ‘origin story,’ a begin-from-before-the-beginning tale that tells us how they came to be who and what they are. We’ve seen it for comic-book heroes (Batman), secret agents (James Bond), and even sci-fi starship crews (namely that of the Enterprise). Now here’s Ridley Scott’s Robin Hood, which offers up an ‘origin story’ for British history’s most famous arrow-slinging bandit. And, indeed, what we have here is closer in tone to Batman Begins or Casino Royale than any given Errol Flynn offering. There’s not much merry about Robin Longstride and his men this go-‘round—this is Robin Hood by way of Braveheart or Scott’s own Gladiator—but there is plenty of epic action, decent acting, and sumptuous design to behold.
Robin Hood wants to tell us the story ‘before Sherwood Forest.’ And before he was a forest-dwelling highwayman, it seems that Robin Longstride (Russell Crowe) was a crack archer among the Crusaders of King Richard III (Danny Huston). Richard’s forays into the Holy Land have left him weary, cynical, and broke. He and his army are on the march home, but decide to take a swipe at perennial enemies the French along the way. Bad idea. Richard ends up on the wrong end of a French arrow. This puts his right-hand knight Sir Robert Loxley in the unpleasant situation of having to deliver bad news back to England along with Richard’s crown, and it puts Robin and his fellow soldiers out of a job. Meanwhile, back in England, Richard’s younger brother John (Oscar Isaac) has been ruling somewhat haphazardly, trying to recoup his elder brother’s defense-budget debts between sexual romps with French princesses. But John is not the only one in bed with the French (so to speak). His childhood friend Godfrey (Mark Strong) is a double agent, doing his best to foment unrest in England so that Philip II of France can invade the fractious country with ease. Godfrey and his thugs intercept Loxley on his return trip, but Robin and his friends (also returning) run off the assassins before they get the crown—but not before Sir Robert is mortally wounded. Recognizing Robin as a fellow Crusader, he asks him to deliver his sword back to his estranged father Sir Walter Loxley (Max von Sydow) in Nottingham. And so Robin, assuming Loxley’s upper-class identity to ensure safe passage, returns to England with a dead king’s crown and a dead man’s sword. But will crowning the inexperienced John king be enough to stop the French? And how, exactly, will the Loxleys—Sir Walter and Sir Robert’s widow Marion (Cate Blanchett)—feel about this archer claiming to be a part of the family?
There are many narrative strands to weave together here (did I mention there are questions about Robin’s past?) along with many, many characters. In addition to those already named, there are the usual ‘merry men’: excitable Will Scarlet (Scott Grimes), lute-strumming Alan A’Dayle (Alan Doyle) and towering brawler Little John (Kevin Durand); there’s the mead-distilling Friar Tuck (Mark Addy) and a sleazy Sheriff of Nottingham (Matthew Macfadyen); and, back at court, Richard and John’s formidable mother Eleanor of Aquitaine (Eileen Atkins) and her loyal friend Chancellor William Marshall (William Hurt). It’s to the credit of Scott and screenwriter Brian Helgeland that we largely know what is what and who is who most of the time. The plots and people are juggled effectively if not always thoroughly. I suspect some of Hurt’s part, as well as some of the John-Eleanor stuff, ended up on the cutting-room floor. And it also sometimes feels as if characters like Tuck and the Sheriff are there more because we expect them to be than because the story requires them. Still, a certain amount of complexity is true to the course of British history, if not to our usual summer movie narrative experience, and the actions and motivations of the principal characters remains clear. Scott tends to favor big over small in his productions, and, in a movie of about 2 ½ hours length, it’s probably better to have too many rich supporting characters around the edges than too few.
There’s little to complain about in the acting. Crowe (who is to Ridley Scott what Johnny Depp is to Tim Burton) gives a more layered performance than the movie probably deserves. One of Crowe’s trademarks as an actor is to always hint that there is more to a character than we see, and that serves him well here as a man who is in fact other than he pretends to be (or remembers). This role isn’t new ground for Crowe by any means, but his comfort in it is an asset. Blanchett is likewise on familiar footing as dignified/spunky/coy Marion Loxley, who is neither maid nor shrinking violet in this version (she even dons a suit of armor). There’s less romance between these two than some Robins and Marions, but how quickly do we really want Marion to kiss the man who brought news of her husband’s death? Danny Huston (whose agent has clearly been pulling some overtime lately) is a nice surprise as a burned-out but still somehow regal Richard the Lionheart, and Oscar Isaac, who seems to come from the Jonathan Rhys Myers school of petulant kingship, is equal parts naïve and Machiavellian as slippery King John. As Godfrey, Mark Strong (whose business cards surely have black hats emblazoned on them) adds yet another in his recent long line of arch and gleeful villains. It’s nice to have von Sydow, Atkins, and Hurt along to add some gravitas, even if two of the three feel vastly underused.
Robin Hood is meant to be an epic—Scott’s apparent genre of choice—and, like the same director’s Gladiator and Kingdom of Heaven, looks every inch of it. There’s much of the current revisionist-accurate gray-stone-and-mud look, but there are also warm firelit rooms, lush forests, green rolling hills, and cliff-ringed beach landings. The landscape is dotted here and there with ruined towers and slowly eroding Roman and Celtic monuments, a nice depth-adding touch that is mercifully exploited less than it could be. The costumes are probably a bit more modern Renaissance Faire than true 12th Century, but everyone looks good enough in them that I didn’t really care. Scott has the chops and the resources to pull of a film of this scale. He especially seems to relish mass battle sequences, and the ones in Robin Hood don’t overstay their welcome. The same can not be said for his now-trademark stop-and-start approach to editing one-on-one combat. It was new and fresh in Gladiator; it’s now starting to feel like its own knock-off.
Much of the unfavorable reaction to this film stems, I’m willing to bet, from the fact that it is not what we think of as the Robin Hood story: jolly lads in a forest making fools of the authorities for a good cause. That’s where this ends, leaving ample room for more adventures of Longstride (as well as Scott, Crowe, Blanchett, et. al.) in the future. I have no problem with the movie wanting to show me new aspects of the Robin Hood character. I have more problems with the movie not really showing me new aspects of filmmaking. This feels like a comfortable outing by a director who knows a genre and actors playing the sorts of roles they know they can play well. Films don’t always have to innovate to succeed, of course, but Scott, Crowe, Blanchett, and Helgeland have all been groundbreakers in various ways in various other projects, and the juicy tale of Robin Hood would seem to be a great opportunity to really go somewhere. I’ll admit, however, that ‘origin’ movies are often a bit unsatisfying, and set up better sequels (X2, The Dark Knight). That may be the case here, as this world and these people are certainly rich enough to revisit. The legend itself teaches us that, in their time in Sherwood Forest, Robin and his men learn a number of new tricks. I hope that if this crowd elects to journey to Sherwood as well, that they learn a few, too.
Robin Hood wants to tell us the story ‘before Sherwood Forest.’ And before he was a forest-dwelling highwayman, it seems that Robin Longstride (Russell Crowe) was a crack archer among the Crusaders of King Richard III (Danny Huston). Richard’s forays into the Holy Land have left him weary, cynical, and broke. He and his army are on the march home, but decide to take a swipe at perennial enemies the French along the way. Bad idea. Richard ends up on the wrong end of a French arrow. This puts his right-hand knight Sir Robert Loxley in the unpleasant situation of having to deliver bad news back to England along with Richard’s crown, and it puts Robin and his fellow soldiers out of a job. Meanwhile, back in England, Richard’s younger brother John (Oscar Isaac) has been ruling somewhat haphazardly, trying to recoup his elder brother’s defense-budget debts between sexual romps with French princesses. But John is not the only one in bed with the French (so to speak). His childhood friend Godfrey (Mark Strong) is a double agent, doing his best to foment unrest in England so that Philip II of France can invade the fractious country with ease. Godfrey and his thugs intercept Loxley on his return trip, but Robin and his friends (also returning) run off the assassins before they get the crown—but not before Sir Robert is mortally wounded. Recognizing Robin as a fellow Crusader, he asks him to deliver his sword back to his estranged father Sir Walter Loxley (Max von Sydow) in Nottingham. And so Robin, assuming Loxley’s upper-class identity to ensure safe passage, returns to England with a dead king’s crown and a dead man’s sword. But will crowning the inexperienced John king be enough to stop the French? And how, exactly, will the Loxleys—Sir Walter and Sir Robert’s widow Marion (Cate Blanchett)—feel about this archer claiming to be a part of the family?
There are many narrative strands to weave together here (did I mention there are questions about Robin’s past?) along with many, many characters. In addition to those already named, there are the usual ‘merry men’: excitable Will Scarlet (Scott Grimes), lute-strumming Alan A’Dayle (Alan Doyle) and towering brawler Little John (Kevin Durand); there’s the mead-distilling Friar Tuck (Mark Addy) and a sleazy Sheriff of Nottingham (Matthew Macfadyen); and, back at court, Richard and John’s formidable mother Eleanor of Aquitaine (Eileen Atkins) and her loyal friend Chancellor William Marshall (William Hurt). It’s to the credit of Scott and screenwriter Brian Helgeland that we largely know what is what and who is who most of the time. The plots and people are juggled effectively if not always thoroughly. I suspect some of Hurt’s part, as well as some of the John-Eleanor stuff, ended up on the cutting-room floor. And it also sometimes feels as if characters like Tuck and the Sheriff are there more because we expect them to be than because the story requires them. Still, a certain amount of complexity is true to the course of British history, if not to our usual summer movie narrative experience, and the actions and motivations of the principal characters remains clear. Scott tends to favor big over small in his productions, and, in a movie of about 2 ½ hours length, it’s probably better to have too many rich supporting characters around the edges than too few.
There’s little to complain about in the acting. Crowe (who is to Ridley Scott what Johnny Depp is to Tim Burton) gives a more layered performance than the movie probably deserves. One of Crowe’s trademarks as an actor is to always hint that there is more to a character than we see, and that serves him well here as a man who is in fact other than he pretends to be (or remembers). This role isn’t new ground for Crowe by any means, but his comfort in it is an asset. Blanchett is likewise on familiar footing as dignified/spunky/coy Marion Loxley, who is neither maid nor shrinking violet in this version (she even dons a suit of armor). There’s less romance between these two than some Robins and Marions, but how quickly do we really want Marion to kiss the man who brought news of her husband’s death? Danny Huston (whose agent has clearly been pulling some overtime lately) is a nice surprise as a burned-out but still somehow regal Richard the Lionheart, and Oscar Isaac, who seems to come from the Jonathan Rhys Myers school of petulant kingship, is equal parts naïve and Machiavellian as slippery King John. As Godfrey, Mark Strong (whose business cards surely have black hats emblazoned on them) adds yet another in his recent long line of arch and gleeful villains. It’s nice to have von Sydow, Atkins, and Hurt along to add some gravitas, even if two of the three feel vastly underused.
Robin Hood is meant to be an epic—Scott’s apparent genre of choice—and, like the same director’s Gladiator and Kingdom of Heaven, looks every inch of it. There’s much of the current revisionist-accurate gray-stone-and-mud look, but there are also warm firelit rooms, lush forests, green rolling hills, and cliff-ringed beach landings. The landscape is dotted here and there with ruined towers and slowly eroding Roman and Celtic monuments, a nice depth-adding touch that is mercifully exploited less than it could be. The costumes are probably a bit more modern Renaissance Faire than true 12th Century, but everyone looks good enough in them that I didn’t really care. Scott has the chops and the resources to pull of a film of this scale. He especially seems to relish mass battle sequences, and the ones in Robin Hood don’t overstay their welcome. The same can not be said for his now-trademark stop-and-start approach to editing one-on-one combat. It was new and fresh in Gladiator; it’s now starting to feel like its own knock-off.
Much of the unfavorable reaction to this film stems, I’m willing to bet, from the fact that it is not what we think of as the Robin Hood story: jolly lads in a forest making fools of the authorities for a good cause. That’s where this ends, leaving ample room for more adventures of Longstride (as well as Scott, Crowe, Blanchett, et. al.) in the future. I have no problem with the movie wanting to show me new aspects of the Robin Hood character. I have more problems with the movie not really showing me new aspects of filmmaking. This feels like a comfortable outing by a director who knows a genre and actors playing the sorts of roles they know they can play well. Films don’t always have to innovate to succeed, of course, but Scott, Crowe, Blanchett, and Helgeland have all been groundbreakers in various ways in various other projects, and the juicy tale of Robin Hood would seem to be a great opportunity to really go somewhere. I’ll admit, however, that ‘origin’ movies are often a bit unsatisfying, and set up better sequels (X2, The Dark Knight). That may be the case here, as this world and these people are certainly rich enough to revisit. The legend itself teaches us that, in their time in Sherwood Forest, Robin and his men learn a number of new tricks. I hope that if this crowd elects to journey to Sherwood as well, that they learn a few, too.
Monday, May 17, 2010
Crazy Heart (2009)
Many a movie about musicians starts to feel like one of those old “Behind the Music” shows, a heavily-edited, moralized version of someone’s rags-to-riches-to-rags-and-maybe-back-again life. Crazy Heart has that narrative arc, but it doesn’t feel like a show. It doesn’t even feel like a documentary. It feels like one of those musicians’ home movies. Oh, it’s all fiction. There is no real country singer named Bad Blake. I know that. You know that. The movie doesn’t know that, and that—along with a deep performance by Jeff Bridges—is Crazy Heart’s strength.
Crazy Heart is one of those films that relies less on plot than on character, and the main character here is the aforementioned Bad Blake (Bridges). Bad (“My real name will be on my tombstone,” he says. “Until then, I’m Bad Blake.”) is an old school country singer. He had some big hits, once, years ago (he’s still regarded as a home-run songwriter, when he can be bothered to write), but lately he’s fallen on hard times. Bad tours the West, playing dive bars and bowling alleys, without even a permanent backup band. On gig nights, he hands kids he’s never met CDs and sheet music from the back of his truck: “Listen real good to this. I’ll show up in an hour.” Meanwhile, his own protégée, young Tommy Sweet (an understated Colin Farrell), packs arenas playing slick Nashville-produced covers of Blake’s songs. Bad Blake is on autopilot, and it’s not pretty. He drinks too much. He doesn’t care.
Turns out, though, one guy in one of his ‘pick-up bands’ isn’t a kid, but a seasoned, talented pianist. Blake likes him for that. Turns out the guy has a niece who’s a small-time music journalist. Turns out she wants to interview Bad Blake. Blake has nothing to lose, and time to kill. What the hell—he’ll meet the niece. And so into Bad’s motel room and into his life walks Jane Craddock (Maggie Gyllenhaal, effortlessly appealing). At first, Blake tries to put her off. But she knows more about country music—and him—than he suspected. She’s younger than him, by a lot, but they’ve both made mistakes and they’ve both lost. And so they connect on some level, the level on which many a classic country song operates. This could be the start, as the saying goes, of a beautiful…well, a beautiful something.
What that something is I will leave you, if you are so inclined, to discover. The movie plays itself out in ways that are sometimes expected and sometimes not, but which are always genuine. Crazy Heart takes Bad and Jane seriously, and neither romanticizes nor cheats them. We’ve seen this sort of hard luck, hard-drinking, love-of-a-good-woman story before, but rarely this richly presented. The movie has time for details. Bad is, well, bad. Not mean, but adrift. Alcoholic. Selfish. Cynical. But notice how, even drunk, he remembers the song he’d promised a fan. And notice how, when he calls Jane long distance, and her four-year-old son answers the phone, he has time for the kid, too. And notice how, to interview Bad after a show, Jane has to find a babysitter. And how the only rule she lays down about Bad’s drinking is “not in front of my son.” Too many movies are just about characters. This one feels like it’s actually about people.
It helps that the number of people the film focuses on is rather small. First, of course, is Bad Blake, and Bridges, with greasy hair and sunglasses from the Hank Williams Jr. collection, owns this role. Some performances jump out at you. Bridges’s turn here sneaks up on you. He is Bad Blake. Jeff Bridges is a busy guy. His is a familiar face. I forgot I was watching him. The role won Bridges a Best Actor Oscar, and justly so. He builds Bad Blake from the inside out, and wisely lets it show that the character, too, is an actor. The flashier turn as a guy named ‘Bad’ is by Blake himself, not Bridges. There are layers to this performance, all of them well-executed. Bridges also does his own singing, which adds authenticity. It’s often said that an actor “inhabits” a role; Jeff Bridges seems to have been living in Bad Blake for years. It pays off. Without a ringer in the Blake role, the film would fall apart. It doesn’t. Guess why not.
The other key player is Jane. Maggie Gyllenhaal does “likable” about as well as any actress working, but it’s to her and the script’s credit that Jane is more than a long-suffering pretty face. She is not a groupie, nor is she naive. Jane is interested in the guy, not the persona. Pay attention to the scene where she cries as Bad plays a new song, and why she cries when she does. Also notice how she reacts when Bad finally goes too far. There is no big shouting scene. After all, that only happens in the movies.
Filling in the edges are solid turns by Colin Farrell (also singing his own stuff) as the younger star who knows how lucky he has been in his timing—and his friends, and Robert Duvall as Blake’s old pal Wayne, the kind of guy who knows when not to serve Bad whiskey, and also when to take him fishing. Duvall himself gave an Oscar-winning performance as a hard-living country singer in Tender Mercies, and his presence here has a similar “seal of approval” feeling to Leonard Nimoy’s appearance in the Star Trek reboot.
This is a movie about music, among other things, and the music it features—written or chosen by T-Bone Burnett—is just right. The music attracted an Oscar as well, for “The Weary Kind,” the song that makes Jane cry. Blake’s material feels like it’s been around for a while, and sounds just as good played on one acoustic guitar as it does with Tommy’s full-strength band behind it. At some point in the film, I realized that, if Bad Blake was playing a bar near me, I’d probably go hear him. He’s not going to do that, of course, but it’s to the movie’s credit that I sort of hope he does.
“Character pieces” like this are not for everyone, but, then, neither is country music. For those interested, however, Crazy Heart offers both those things, both well-performed.
Crazy Heart is one of those films that relies less on plot than on character, and the main character here is the aforementioned Bad Blake (Bridges). Bad (“My real name will be on my tombstone,” he says. “Until then, I’m Bad Blake.”) is an old school country singer. He had some big hits, once, years ago (he’s still regarded as a home-run songwriter, when he can be bothered to write), but lately he’s fallen on hard times. Bad tours the West, playing dive bars and bowling alleys, without even a permanent backup band. On gig nights, he hands kids he’s never met CDs and sheet music from the back of his truck: “Listen real good to this. I’ll show up in an hour.” Meanwhile, his own protégée, young Tommy Sweet (an understated Colin Farrell), packs arenas playing slick Nashville-produced covers of Blake’s songs. Bad Blake is on autopilot, and it’s not pretty. He drinks too much. He doesn’t care.
Turns out, though, one guy in one of his ‘pick-up bands’ isn’t a kid, but a seasoned, talented pianist. Blake likes him for that. Turns out the guy has a niece who’s a small-time music journalist. Turns out she wants to interview Bad Blake. Blake has nothing to lose, and time to kill. What the hell—he’ll meet the niece. And so into Bad’s motel room and into his life walks Jane Craddock (Maggie Gyllenhaal, effortlessly appealing). At first, Blake tries to put her off. But she knows more about country music—and him—than he suspected. She’s younger than him, by a lot, but they’ve both made mistakes and they’ve both lost. And so they connect on some level, the level on which many a classic country song operates. This could be the start, as the saying goes, of a beautiful…well, a beautiful something.
What that something is I will leave you, if you are so inclined, to discover. The movie plays itself out in ways that are sometimes expected and sometimes not, but which are always genuine. Crazy Heart takes Bad and Jane seriously, and neither romanticizes nor cheats them. We’ve seen this sort of hard luck, hard-drinking, love-of-a-good-woman story before, but rarely this richly presented. The movie has time for details. Bad is, well, bad. Not mean, but adrift. Alcoholic. Selfish. Cynical. But notice how, even drunk, he remembers the song he’d promised a fan. And notice how, when he calls Jane long distance, and her four-year-old son answers the phone, he has time for the kid, too. And notice how, to interview Bad after a show, Jane has to find a babysitter. And how the only rule she lays down about Bad’s drinking is “not in front of my son.” Too many movies are just about characters. This one feels like it’s actually about people.
It helps that the number of people the film focuses on is rather small. First, of course, is Bad Blake, and Bridges, with greasy hair and sunglasses from the Hank Williams Jr. collection, owns this role. Some performances jump out at you. Bridges’s turn here sneaks up on you. He is Bad Blake. Jeff Bridges is a busy guy. His is a familiar face. I forgot I was watching him. The role won Bridges a Best Actor Oscar, and justly so. He builds Bad Blake from the inside out, and wisely lets it show that the character, too, is an actor. The flashier turn as a guy named ‘Bad’ is by Blake himself, not Bridges. There are layers to this performance, all of them well-executed. Bridges also does his own singing, which adds authenticity. It’s often said that an actor “inhabits” a role; Jeff Bridges seems to have been living in Bad Blake for years. It pays off. Without a ringer in the Blake role, the film would fall apart. It doesn’t. Guess why not.
The other key player is Jane. Maggie Gyllenhaal does “likable” about as well as any actress working, but it’s to her and the script’s credit that Jane is more than a long-suffering pretty face. She is not a groupie, nor is she naive. Jane is interested in the guy, not the persona. Pay attention to the scene where she cries as Bad plays a new song, and why she cries when she does. Also notice how she reacts when Bad finally goes too far. There is no big shouting scene. After all, that only happens in the movies.
Filling in the edges are solid turns by Colin Farrell (also singing his own stuff) as the younger star who knows how lucky he has been in his timing—and his friends, and Robert Duvall as Blake’s old pal Wayne, the kind of guy who knows when not to serve Bad whiskey, and also when to take him fishing. Duvall himself gave an Oscar-winning performance as a hard-living country singer in Tender Mercies, and his presence here has a similar “seal of approval” feeling to Leonard Nimoy’s appearance in the Star Trek reboot.
This is a movie about music, among other things, and the music it features—written or chosen by T-Bone Burnett—is just right. The music attracted an Oscar as well, for “The Weary Kind,” the song that makes Jane cry. Blake’s material feels like it’s been around for a while, and sounds just as good played on one acoustic guitar as it does with Tommy’s full-strength band behind it. At some point in the film, I realized that, if Bad Blake was playing a bar near me, I’d probably go hear him. He’s not going to do that, of course, but it’s to the movie’s credit that I sort of hope he does.
“Character pieces” like this are not for everyone, but, then, neither is country music. For those interested, however, Crazy Heart offers both those things, both well-performed.
Thursday, May 13, 2010
The Blind Side (2009)
The Blind Side is a pleasantly charming movie that’s a little about football, a little about race and class dynamics, a little about family, but really a lot about decent people trying to do the right thing. Given that it takes its title from a football term, I’ll use some here: this film is no Hail Mary Pass—it’s a solid, slow march down the field. No flash, no heroics, but good enough to score.
The Blind Side is based on the true story of Michael Oher. The outlines of his story are familiar: an African-American kid from the inner-city projects rises, through hard work and a talent for athletics to success in college and professional sports. Oher (Quinton Aaron) has many of the sadly usual problems against him: a disinterested, drug-addicted mother; lackluster support from foster homes; economic hardship (we meet Michael living on an uncle’s couch and owning just as many clothes as fit in a plastic shopping bag). In his favor, Michael is gifted with unusual size, an aptitude for auditory learning, and a strong tendency to display ‘protective instincts.’ The size gets him noticed. When his uncle (a mechanic who’s been saving) angles to get his own son, a basketball whiz, into a ritzy Christian school, the football coach notes the hulking nephew and starts salivating. ‘Big Mike’ is in. He’s now a private school kid.
And it’s here that Oher’s story takes an interesting turn. One cold night, Michael attracts the attention of well-to-do Leigh Anne Tuohy (Sandra Bullock) not for his size, but because he’s wandering around in the cold in only a polo shirt and shorts. He’s on his way to try to sleep in the school gym. Leigh Anne is having none of it, and invites Oher to spend the night at the house she shares with her entrepreneur husband Sean (Tim McGraw) and kids. Slowly, the Tuohys take Oher under their wing, giving him shelter, support, and something the young man has never had before: a loving family.
Yeah, there’s football involved. Turns out that Oher is just perfect to be a prize left tackle, guarding the all-important ‘blind side’ of the quarterback, and the Tuohys (a clan of sports fans) encourage Michael on and off the field to pursue sports as a vocation. This leads to some entertaining ‘training montages’ and gridiron exploits. This is not, however, a ‘football movie.’ The resolution does not depend on someone winning a big game, or on a small team defeating a scary cross-state rival, but instead depends on the decisions people make—on who Michael Oher decides to be, and why. This is a character piece, and wisely uses sports and people’s reactions to them as means to illustrate character. Consider the high-school football coach (Ray McKinnon): he’s neither a tyrant nor a dunce nor a manipulator—just a man who knows a good thing when he sees it, and who likes to win. There’s also a great scene where Sean Tuohy—himself a former basketball star—explains Tennyson’s “The Charge of the Light Brigade” to Michael in sporting terms, and the young man completely gets it. Sure, lots of films make the connection between the athletic life and manhood and courage—but how many do it with poetry?
The film is helped along by winning performances—literally, in Bullock’s case: she won an Oscar. Her take on Leigh Anne is certainly memorable, even if she feels a little underserved by the screenplay. There are plenty of ways to go wrong with this sort of brassy Southern Belle, and Bullock manages to avoid most of them. Oscar-worthy is always a matter of opinion, but at least Bullock keeps Leigh Anne from sliding into caricature, and makes a woman who’s honestly quite pushy also honestly likable. Tim McGraw brings a delightful laid-back twinkle to Sean Tuohy, the husband who is, refreshingly for a movie spouse, allowed to be at least as decent as his wife. McGraw, a country music star, did a very different parental turn in the film version of Friday Night Lights. The guy has some range, and he doesn’t pale here next to Bullock. As the Tuohy kids, Lily Collins smiles sweetly as cheerleader daughter Collins (how’s that for name coincidence?) and as motormouth younger brother S. J., Jae Head gets to spout the usual slicker-than-his-years one-liners. Quinton Aaron, as Oher, has the hardest job, given that he has to play straight man to the Tuohy clan, suggest the inner depths of the quiet, troubled Michael, and play believable football. He acquits himself admirably in all three cases. It’s not a standout performance, but soul, not virtuosity, is required here, and Aaron has that. As for the real-life college coaches (including Nick Saban and Lou Holtz) who show up as their past selves on recruiting missions, they’re at least no more wooden than in post-game interviews. One imagines giving recruiting pitches is a sort of acting coaches are used to. Providing a spunkier sort of authority figure is the always-dependable Kathy Bates in a small role as Michael’s personal tutor.
What The Blind Side lacks is what many a pro bench also lacks: depth. In some cases, this is not a detraction. The movie hints at a number of complex issues—racial inequality, the exploitation of African-American young men by athletic programs, banal bigotry, the temptation of easy, drug-fueled living in the projects—but it mostly keeps these below the surface. Discretion is probably the better part of filmmaking here, as too much of this would lead to a darker tone. The movie is smart enough to acknowledge these things, but also smart enough to move on. The Blind Side wants to be about the bright side, not the dark side, and it wisely stays there (for those who want grit in this type of story, there’s Precious). Less wise, however, is the tendency to also keep the characters’ deeper emotions below the surface. At one point, when Leigh Anne’s country club friends patronizingly tell her how great it is that she’s changing Michael’s life, she responds, “No. He’s changing mine.” It’s the right sentiment, of course, and it’s the line convention trains us to expect. But she shouldn’t have to say it. The movie should show us Leigh Anne’s life changing, and it doesn’t. Bullock gamely closes her eyes from time to time and Considers Things Deeply, but that’s not enough. I liked these characters too much to believe they had such static inner lives.
As a whole, though, The Blind Side tells a charming story in a largely charming way. I appreciated that it didn’t make Michael’s struggle about conquering plain ignorance or bad attitude but rather about learning to trust others and himself. And I appreciated that the movie recognizes that the hardest hits often come off the football field, not on it. Most of all, I appreciated that the movie didn’t have much ambition beyond competently telling a story of plain old human kindness. These days, that’s a subject that often ends up (if you’ll excuse me) on Hollywood’s blind side. Michael Oher eventually went to the Baltimore Ravens, number 23 in the first round of the 2009 NFL draft. A respectable place for Oher: not top ten, but still first round. That’s about where this film belongs, too.
The Blind Side is based on the true story of Michael Oher. The outlines of his story are familiar: an African-American kid from the inner-city projects rises, through hard work and a talent for athletics to success in college and professional sports. Oher (Quinton Aaron) has many of the sadly usual problems against him: a disinterested, drug-addicted mother; lackluster support from foster homes; economic hardship (we meet Michael living on an uncle’s couch and owning just as many clothes as fit in a plastic shopping bag). In his favor, Michael is gifted with unusual size, an aptitude for auditory learning, and a strong tendency to display ‘protective instincts.’ The size gets him noticed. When his uncle (a mechanic who’s been saving) angles to get his own son, a basketball whiz, into a ritzy Christian school, the football coach notes the hulking nephew and starts salivating. ‘Big Mike’ is in. He’s now a private school kid.
And it’s here that Oher’s story takes an interesting turn. One cold night, Michael attracts the attention of well-to-do Leigh Anne Tuohy (Sandra Bullock) not for his size, but because he’s wandering around in the cold in only a polo shirt and shorts. He’s on his way to try to sleep in the school gym. Leigh Anne is having none of it, and invites Oher to spend the night at the house she shares with her entrepreneur husband Sean (Tim McGraw) and kids. Slowly, the Tuohys take Oher under their wing, giving him shelter, support, and something the young man has never had before: a loving family.
Yeah, there’s football involved. Turns out that Oher is just perfect to be a prize left tackle, guarding the all-important ‘blind side’ of the quarterback, and the Tuohys (a clan of sports fans) encourage Michael on and off the field to pursue sports as a vocation. This leads to some entertaining ‘training montages’ and gridiron exploits. This is not, however, a ‘football movie.’ The resolution does not depend on someone winning a big game, or on a small team defeating a scary cross-state rival, but instead depends on the decisions people make—on who Michael Oher decides to be, and why. This is a character piece, and wisely uses sports and people’s reactions to them as means to illustrate character. Consider the high-school football coach (Ray McKinnon): he’s neither a tyrant nor a dunce nor a manipulator—just a man who knows a good thing when he sees it, and who likes to win. There’s also a great scene where Sean Tuohy—himself a former basketball star—explains Tennyson’s “The Charge of the Light Brigade” to Michael in sporting terms, and the young man completely gets it. Sure, lots of films make the connection between the athletic life and manhood and courage—but how many do it with poetry?
The film is helped along by winning performances—literally, in Bullock’s case: she won an Oscar. Her take on Leigh Anne is certainly memorable, even if she feels a little underserved by the screenplay. There are plenty of ways to go wrong with this sort of brassy Southern Belle, and Bullock manages to avoid most of them. Oscar-worthy is always a matter of opinion, but at least Bullock keeps Leigh Anne from sliding into caricature, and makes a woman who’s honestly quite pushy also honestly likable. Tim McGraw brings a delightful laid-back twinkle to Sean Tuohy, the husband who is, refreshingly for a movie spouse, allowed to be at least as decent as his wife. McGraw, a country music star, did a very different parental turn in the film version of Friday Night Lights. The guy has some range, and he doesn’t pale here next to Bullock. As the Tuohy kids, Lily Collins smiles sweetly as cheerleader daughter Collins (how’s that for name coincidence?) and as motormouth younger brother S. J., Jae Head gets to spout the usual slicker-than-his-years one-liners. Quinton Aaron, as Oher, has the hardest job, given that he has to play straight man to the Tuohy clan, suggest the inner depths of the quiet, troubled Michael, and play believable football. He acquits himself admirably in all three cases. It’s not a standout performance, but soul, not virtuosity, is required here, and Aaron has that. As for the real-life college coaches (including Nick Saban and Lou Holtz) who show up as their past selves on recruiting missions, they’re at least no more wooden than in post-game interviews. One imagines giving recruiting pitches is a sort of acting coaches are used to. Providing a spunkier sort of authority figure is the always-dependable Kathy Bates in a small role as Michael’s personal tutor.
What The Blind Side lacks is what many a pro bench also lacks: depth. In some cases, this is not a detraction. The movie hints at a number of complex issues—racial inequality, the exploitation of African-American young men by athletic programs, banal bigotry, the temptation of easy, drug-fueled living in the projects—but it mostly keeps these below the surface. Discretion is probably the better part of filmmaking here, as too much of this would lead to a darker tone. The movie is smart enough to acknowledge these things, but also smart enough to move on. The Blind Side wants to be about the bright side, not the dark side, and it wisely stays there (for those who want grit in this type of story, there’s Precious). Less wise, however, is the tendency to also keep the characters’ deeper emotions below the surface. At one point, when Leigh Anne’s country club friends patronizingly tell her how great it is that she’s changing Michael’s life, she responds, “No. He’s changing mine.” It’s the right sentiment, of course, and it’s the line convention trains us to expect. But she shouldn’t have to say it. The movie should show us Leigh Anne’s life changing, and it doesn’t. Bullock gamely closes her eyes from time to time and Considers Things Deeply, but that’s not enough. I liked these characters too much to believe they had such static inner lives.
As a whole, though, The Blind Side tells a charming story in a largely charming way. I appreciated that it didn’t make Michael’s struggle about conquering plain ignorance or bad attitude but rather about learning to trust others and himself. And I appreciated that the movie recognizes that the hardest hits often come off the football field, not on it. Most of all, I appreciated that the movie didn’t have much ambition beyond competently telling a story of plain old human kindness. These days, that’s a subject that often ends up (if you’ll excuse me) on Hollywood’s blind side. Michael Oher eventually went to the Baltimore Ravens, number 23 in the first round of the 2009 NFL draft. A respectable place for Oher: not top ten, but still first round. That’s about where this film belongs, too.
Monday, May 10, 2010
Iron Man 2 (2010)
Let’s get this over with right away: it’s not as cool as the first one. The first Iron Man movie came out of nowhere, harnessed a beloved but minor comic franchise to a loosey-goosey script, some nifty CGI, and a knockout performance from Robert Downey, Jr., and was good beyond all reason. That’s hard to sustain. The movies provide their own analogy, though: people are always trying to knock off Tony Stark’s Iron Man suit and its ‘arc-reactor’ power source but never quite get there. Iron Man 2 is the same way: it lacks the genius of the original, but it’s certainly powerful enough to do some (box-office) damage.
Iron Man 2 finds inventor-turned-superhero Tony Stark (Downey) facing troubling times. Yes, his high-powered robosuit is a smashing success, and, yes, he’s ditched that usual hero standby, the secret identity—so he gets, as it were, the power and the glory. But pressures are mounting. His company is floundering while Tony flies off to fight evil. A government panel led by Senator Stern (a pompous Garry Shandling) wants Stark to bring Iron Man under government control. Rival weapons-maker Justin Hammer (the always-welcome Sam Rockwell) is sniffing around for a piece of the Iron Pie. And those are just the obvious menaces: lurking in Russia is the embittered Ivan Vanko (Mickey Rourke), the son of a former colleague of Tony’s father, whose knack for physics is matched only by his drive for revenge. And lurking in Tony’s own blood are toxins leaking in from the nuclear element that powers his suit—being Iron Man is literally killing Mr. Stark.
He has a solution for the company problem: promoting his ever-practical assistant Pepper Potts (Gwyneth Paltrow) to CEO of Stark Industries. And Stern and Hammer can be put off with some deft word-and-tech work. That only goes so far, though—and the hidden menaces are harder to manage. Fortunately, Tony has some help: there’s his good friend Lt. Col. James Rhodes (Don Cheadle) to back him up in the firepower department, and his own government friends at the secret ‘S.H.I.E.L.D.’ agency—headed by no-nonsense Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson)—to help Stark find his place in the world order. Also in Stark’s corner are faithful valet-cum-boxer Happy Hogan (director Jon Favreau, donning his actor hat) and new assistant Natalie Rushman (Scarlett Johansson), who seems to have a few more skills than are listed on her resume.
There’s a lot going on here, and perhaps because of that this movie takes itself a bit more seriously than its predecessor. Iron Man felt slightly subversive, but this sequel pretty firmly plants itself in conventional superhero movie territory. Events seem to matter more this time around, and the emotions are pitched a little higher. Director Favreau manages a deft enough touch to keep things from becoming too heavy, though (let’s not forget he helmed Swingers and Elf). And while I’m growing a bit weary of CGI-metal bodies clanking against each other, there are some real rushes to be had from some of the obligatory action sequences. The one in which Vanko, sporting arc-reactor-powered laser whips, ambushes Stark at a Monaco racetrack and a later sequence where Stark and Rhodes have a party quarrel while wearing robosuits each provide a different kind of genuine pleasure.
The strength of this movie, like its predecessor, is in the acting. Favreau and screenwriter Justin Theroux are themselves both actors, and so it’s no surprise that this is a superhero franchise that gives us real characters to get to know and not just weird names in suits. Downey is the human arc-reactor that powers the film, slipping easily back into the role of Tony Stark as if he never left it (to, for example, play Sherlock Holmes). Downey’s whipcrack verbal timing conveys Stark’s arrogance while the look in his big dark eyes suggests some of the inner demons at work in Tony’s psyche. Favreau apparently likes to let his actors improvise, and it wouldn’t surprise me to learn that more of Stark onscreen comes from Downey himself than from the script. The actor gets this guy, through and through, and that alone goes a long way toward selling the movie. It doesn’t hurt a bit that Downey is abetted by such an able supporting cast. Paltrow once again makes Pepper the sweet superego to Stark’s id, and, making the most of the rather thankless part of Stark’s other conscience, Don Cheadle ably replaces an equally underused Terrence Howard from the first film as ‘Rhodey.’ Jackson gets to try yet another version of his familiar bad-mutha-shut-yo-mouth persona as growly Nick Fury, though, honestly, he’s probably one of the few actors who can utter a phrase like “you can solve the riddle of your heart” onscreen without it turning to utter sap. John Slattery, of “Mad Men” fame, turns up as Tony’s father in flashbacks which establish Stark Industries as not far removed from Sterling Cooper. And if Johansson’s femme fatale is a little underwritten, hey—she at least looks good in those tight dresses and black bodysuits.
In true comic book movie tradition, though, the best additions are the villains. Never mind that Mickey Rourke is actually about as Russian as a fifth of Jameson’s; sporting enough metal teeth and tattoos to supply the next three Pirates of the Caribbean movies, his Ivan Vanko is a masterpiece of sly menace. This is a man who laughs off being hit head-on (repeatedly) by a car, and is equally capable of hacking Hammer’s company’s mainframe and lovingly feeding his pet cockatoo vodka. It’s a performance that succeeds on mere presence as much as anything (no mean feat in this ensemble), and seems to prove that the ‘comeback’ talk around Rourke is no fluke. A better verbal match for Downey is provided by Rockwell’s Justin Hammer, a silver-spoon motormouth who has vapid business-speak, money, and spray-on tanner all in seemingly endless supply. Slickness (think Matchstick Men), threat (think The Green Mile), and silliness (think Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy) are all veins Rockwell has richly tapped in the past, and this role allows him to combine all three. The script leaves space for Hammer to return, and I at least hope he will, if only so I can continue to see two veteran hams square off as the rival businessmen. Downey and Rockwell’s scenes together are a smarmy delight.
There’s been grumbling in some quarters that this movie, like the first, basically ends with versions of the Iron Man suit fighting each other. Comic books, however, trade on this type of mirroring (the colorful, brash Joker is dour, dark Batman flipped, etc.), and for now the metaphor of Stark fighting versions of himself works. Vanko personifies the drive to settle scores just as Obadiah Stane in the first film personified corporate greed. These are both men Stark might have been, and what keeps this franchise’s head above water, in terms of narrative, is that everything is basically a variation on Stark trying to save his own heart: literally from shrapnel or poison, but also figuratively from greed, dishonor, wrath, and a host of other sins. After all, you don’t hire a guy like Downey just to spout one-liners; he gives Tony Stark depth and real personality. But I think the movies can learn from their own metaphor: overusing the whiz-bang tech stuff will slowly kill you. Right now, like Stark himself, the Iron Man series looks to come out more or less alive. This sequel is fine summer fun, and a worthy follow-up to the original. But it’s the people, not the technological bells and whistles, that make it so. Without a human being inside, Iron Man is just a bunch of colorful metal. Let’s keep a real guy in there, OK?
Iron Man 2 finds inventor-turned-superhero Tony Stark (Downey) facing troubling times. Yes, his high-powered robosuit is a smashing success, and, yes, he’s ditched that usual hero standby, the secret identity—so he gets, as it were, the power and the glory. But pressures are mounting. His company is floundering while Tony flies off to fight evil. A government panel led by Senator Stern (a pompous Garry Shandling) wants Stark to bring Iron Man under government control. Rival weapons-maker Justin Hammer (the always-welcome Sam Rockwell) is sniffing around for a piece of the Iron Pie. And those are just the obvious menaces: lurking in Russia is the embittered Ivan Vanko (Mickey Rourke), the son of a former colleague of Tony’s father, whose knack for physics is matched only by his drive for revenge. And lurking in Tony’s own blood are toxins leaking in from the nuclear element that powers his suit—being Iron Man is literally killing Mr. Stark.
He has a solution for the company problem: promoting his ever-practical assistant Pepper Potts (Gwyneth Paltrow) to CEO of Stark Industries. And Stern and Hammer can be put off with some deft word-and-tech work. That only goes so far, though—and the hidden menaces are harder to manage. Fortunately, Tony has some help: there’s his good friend Lt. Col. James Rhodes (Don Cheadle) to back him up in the firepower department, and his own government friends at the secret ‘S.H.I.E.L.D.’ agency—headed by no-nonsense Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson)—to help Stark find his place in the world order. Also in Stark’s corner are faithful valet-cum-boxer Happy Hogan (director Jon Favreau, donning his actor hat) and new assistant Natalie Rushman (Scarlett Johansson), who seems to have a few more skills than are listed on her resume.
There’s a lot going on here, and perhaps because of that this movie takes itself a bit more seriously than its predecessor. Iron Man felt slightly subversive, but this sequel pretty firmly plants itself in conventional superhero movie territory. Events seem to matter more this time around, and the emotions are pitched a little higher. Director Favreau manages a deft enough touch to keep things from becoming too heavy, though (let’s not forget he helmed Swingers and Elf). And while I’m growing a bit weary of CGI-metal bodies clanking against each other, there are some real rushes to be had from some of the obligatory action sequences. The one in which Vanko, sporting arc-reactor-powered laser whips, ambushes Stark at a Monaco racetrack and a later sequence where Stark and Rhodes have a party quarrel while wearing robosuits each provide a different kind of genuine pleasure.
The strength of this movie, like its predecessor, is in the acting. Favreau and screenwriter Justin Theroux are themselves both actors, and so it’s no surprise that this is a superhero franchise that gives us real characters to get to know and not just weird names in suits. Downey is the human arc-reactor that powers the film, slipping easily back into the role of Tony Stark as if he never left it (to, for example, play Sherlock Holmes). Downey’s whipcrack verbal timing conveys Stark’s arrogance while the look in his big dark eyes suggests some of the inner demons at work in Tony’s psyche. Favreau apparently likes to let his actors improvise, and it wouldn’t surprise me to learn that more of Stark onscreen comes from Downey himself than from the script. The actor gets this guy, through and through, and that alone goes a long way toward selling the movie. It doesn’t hurt a bit that Downey is abetted by such an able supporting cast. Paltrow once again makes Pepper the sweet superego to Stark’s id, and, making the most of the rather thankless part of Stark’s other conscience, Don Cheadle ably replaces an equally underused Terrence Howard from the first film as ‘Rhodey.’ Jackson gets to try yet another version of his familiar bad-mutha-shut-yo-mouth persona as growly Nick Fury, though, honestly, he’s probably one of the few actors who can utter a phrase like “you can solve the riddle of your heart” onscreen without it turning to utter sap. John Slattery, of “Mad Men” fame, turns up as Tony’s father in flashbacks which establish Stark Industries as not far removed from Sterling Cooper. And if Johansson’s femme fatale is a little underwritten, hey—she at least looks good in those tight dresses and black bodysuits.
In true comic book movie tradition, though, the best additions are the villains. Never mind that Mickey Rourke is actually about as Russian as a fifth of Jameson’s; sporting enough metal teeth and tattoos to supply the next three Pirates of the Caribbean movies, his Ivan Vanko is a masterpiece of sly menace. This is a man who laughs off being hit head-on (repeatedly) by a car, and is equally capable of hacking Hammer’s company’s mainframe and lovingly feeding his pet cockatoo vodka. It’s a performance that succeeds on mere presence as much as anything (no mean feat in this ensemble), and seems to prove that the ‘comeback’ talk around Rourke is no fluke. A better verbal match for Downey is provided by Rockwell’s Justin Hammer, a silver-spoon motormouth who has vapid business-speak, money, and spray-on tanner all in seemingly endless supply. Slickness (think Matchstick Men), threat (think The Green Mile), and silliness (think Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy) are all veins Rockwell has richly tapped in the past, and this role allows him to combine all three. The script leaves space for Hammer to return, and I at least hope he will, if only so I can continue to see two veteran hams square off as the rival businessmen. Downey and Rockwell’s scenes together are a smarmy delight.
There’s been grumbling in some quarters that this movie, like the first, basically ends with versions of the Iron Man suit fighting each other. Comic books, however, trade on this type of mirroring (the colorful, brash Joker is dour, dark Batman flipped, etc.), and for now the metaphor of Stark fighting versions of himself works. Vanko personifies the drive to settle scores just as Obadiah Stane in the first film personified corporate greed. These are both men Stark might have been, and what keeps this franchise’s head above water, in terms of narrative, is that everything is basically a variation on Stark trying to save his own heart: literally from shrapnel or poison, but also figuratively from greed, dishonor, wrath, and a host of other sins. After all, you don’t hire a guy like Downey just to spout one-liners; he gives Tony Stark depth and real personality. But I think the movies can learn from their own metaphor: overusing the whiz-bang tech stuff will slowly kill you. Right now, like Stark himself, the Iron Man series looks to come out more or less alive. This sequel is fine summer fun, and a worthy follow-up to the original. But it’s the people, not the technological bells and whistles, that make it so. Without a human being inside, Iron Man is just a bunch of colorful metal. Let’s keep a real guy in there, OK?
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