Friday, February 17, 2012
There is no point. That's the point.
By Edward Copeland
Tilda Swinton amazes. Each year, she delivers an incredible performance in a film that, in the hands of a Harvey Weinstein or experienced studio marketing team, would most assuredly land her in the best actress Oscar field. Granted, Swinton won an Oscar in the supporting category for Michael Clayton, but she's missed the cut three years running for Julia, I Am Love and now We Need to Talk About Kevin. The big difference this year is that I believe more saw We Need to Talk About Kevin than the two previous films since Swinton won several critic awards and was nominated for both the Golden Globe and Screen Actors Guild awards. Academy voters tend to skew more conservatively and I suspect they couldn't bring themselves to mark their ballots for a performance in a film so distinctly bizarre.
Directed by Lynne Ramsay from a screenplay she and Rory Kinnear adapted from the novel by Lionel Shriver, We Need to Talk About Kevin tells, in a very disjointed fashion, the story of Eva (Swinton), an artist by trade, suburban wife and mother by choice, attempting to come to grips with her guilt over the wreckage caused by her son, Kevin. The movie isn't told in a linear direction, perhaps in an attempt to surprise the audience by dropping out-of-sequence clues like breadcrumbs left to mark a meandering path back out of the woods. However, given the title, the visuals and snippets of scenes that obviously come after the incident happened, it should be clear what kind of horror took place, if only in the abstract and not the specific. The trailer and discussion of the movie pretty well gives it away anyway, so fretting about spoilers seems pointless. However, if you don't know what occurs in We Need to Talk About Kevin, plan to see the film and suspect foreknowledge could ruin that experience, just cease reading this now.
When I described the movie's story as being told in a nonlinear way, that's a bit of an understatement. This isn't simply a film that's not told in chronological order like innumerable works throughout cinematic history such as Orson Welles' Citizen Kane or Quentin Tarantino's Pulp Fiction. For one thing, only in director Lynne Ramsay's dreams would We Need to Talk About Kevin be mentioned in the same breath as Citizen Kane or Pulp Fiction, at least as far as quality goes. Secondly, the film has been edited by Joe Bini as if all the movie's scenes had been handed over cut into single frames and then tossed in the air as if someone had asked him if he'd ever played 52 Card Pickup. We don't stay in one spot very long. It makes Baz Luhrmann's Moulin Rouge, which I once described as being made for people with the attention spans of gnats, look as if it moved at the pace of Tarkovsky's Solaris. This isn't meant to be complimentary. Bini has edited practically everything Werner Herzog has made both fictional and documentary since Little Dieter Needs to Fly, so this is not his usual style even if he did have to cut the execrable The Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call — New Orleans.
It's a shame that Ramsay chose to employ this method to tell the story because it drains We Need to Talk About Kevin of any emotional power. For that matter, it also saps the opportunity to approach the material in any of the myriad ways it hints that it might in the brief segments that will pop up occasionally such as dark satire or horror. It never slows down long enough to explore the idea that Eva's husband Franklin (John C. Reilly, who seems either terribly miscast or was directed to play his role as if he were a clueless parent in a John Hughes film) raises that Eva resented her son Kevin from birth and every time she accuses the little bastard of doing some awful thing, Franklin insists, "He's just a little boy" and buys him fancier and more expensive bow and arrow sets as he ages.
We don't get those conversations in depth though because that would require stopping the fast-forward button and watching a scene play out. It takes their young daughter losing one of her eyes "in an accident" and the 15-year-old Kevin finally showing Dad his callous side for Franklin to catch on that he and his wife should have been on eBay looking for a Dagger of Megiddo to slay their own little Damien. The movie tosses in a brief scene of humor that seems out of place where men come to Eva's door after the high school massacre selling Christianity. One asks if she knows where she's going in the afterlife. "Oh! Yes! I do as a matter of fact. I'm going straight to hell. Eternal damnation, the whole bit. Thanks for asking," Eva replies before shutting the door.
That this chopped-up mess of a movie actually produced two great performances almost makes me believe in miracles. I assume that happened because they filmed scenes whole and then just butchered them later, but they couldn't ruin the performances trapped within. Swinton, as you would expect, delivers one of the two great portrayals. The other bravura turn comes from young Ezra Miller, so good in a completely different type of role in Another Happy Day, who plays Kevin from age 15 on. I also should praise the even younger Jasper Newell, who plays Kevin from ages 6-8. He's very good as well and matches Miller well physically.
As funny as Miller was in Another Happy Day, he's frightening here, even when forced to deliver some of the kitchen sink of topics that get thrown against the wall for a few minutes. Miller gets a good speech where he blames what he did on everyone's favorite target (after violent video games) — television. Never mind that the movie shows no scenes indicating the tube exerted undue influence on Kevin. It's just required to list one of those easy scapegoat favorites: It's the "Why did the teen go mad?" equivalent of Claude Rains' Renault's order in Casablanca to "Round up the usual suspects." Now, it isn't clear if Kevin really is appearing on television or if Eva, who's sleeping on a couch, just dreams his appearance where he says:
"I mean, it's gotten so bad that half the time the people on TV, the people inside the TV, they're watching TV. And what are all these people watching? People like me. And what are all of you doing right now but watching me? You don't think they'd change the channel by now if all I did was get an A in geometry?"
It may be true, but it ain't Paddy Chayefsky. I wasn't the biggest fan of Gus Van Sant's Elephant, but it had more to say coherently about school violence in the post-Columbine era. The brief bit that touched upon the subject in the HBO miniseries Empire Falls packed a bigger punch and came as more of a surprise. Just on a purely realistic level, once we finally see the sequence where Kevin massacres many of his classmates, how in the hell would he have been able to go on that long using a bow and an arrow as his weapon? We're supposed to believe that no one in that school could have swarmed him one of the numerous times he had to load a new arrow which was every time?
The filmmakers behind We Need to Talk About Kevin undermined their film in practically every conceivable way. It's a shame because two talented performers poured their hearts into characters for a film that treated their work as little more than jigsaw puzzle pieces and obviously had no idea in their collective heads what tone they wanted, what message to convey or even if they had any ideas lurking in their skulls at all.
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Labels: 10s, Awards, Chayefsky, H. Weinstein, HBO, Herzog, John C. Reilly, John Hughes, Oscars, Rains, Tarantino, Television, Tilda Swinton, Van Sant, Welles
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Tuesday, January 17, 2012
"Life's a mess, dude — but we're all just doing the best we can"
By Edward Copeland
When perusing year-end award nominations for films that escaped my notice, often the result can prove disappointing (as in the case of Sundance Grand Prize winner Like Crazy). Other times, they turn out to be gems such as Terri, which lost that Sundance prize to Like Crazy, but whose script by Patrick de Witt from a story by Azazel Jacobs and de Witt has been nominated for best first screenplay by the Independent Spirit Awards — and deservedly so.
In a way, Terri resembles a superior, off-kilter version of the largely forgotten (and flawed) 1995 film Angus about an overweight teen's struggles in life and school. While Angus tended to be more conventional in its approach as the title character dreamed of the class beauty, had a gawky friend and lived with his single mom (Kathy Bates) and colorful grandfather (George C. Scott), Terri's approach couldn't be more different. Terri Thompson (Jacob Wysocki) is 15 and lives with his Uncle James (Creed Bratton of The Office) since his parents abandoned him and attends school wearing pajamas.
Life at home isn't easy. Uncle James' health tends to rise and fall, so Terri cares for him as often as the other way around. At school, his attire targets him for even more razzing than usual but it also catches the attention of the high school's unusual principal, Mr. Fitzgerald (another great John C. Reilly turn), who schedules Terri to have regular Monday meetings with him. Soon, Terri realizes that Fitzgerald sets these conferences with many of the school's outcasts, yelling at them sometimes — though he admits to Terri he just does that for the benefit of his secretary, Mrs. Harnish (Mary Anne McGarry).
The odd relationship that develops between Terri and Mr. Fitzgerald drives Terri, thanks to de Witt's great screenplay and Wysocki's performance. He and Reilly create a great rhythm between them, one that takes on a third measure when another of the school's outcasts, Chad Markson (Bridger Zadina), latches on to Terri.
Also giving a fine performance and becoming part of this unusual circle is Olivia Croicchia (Denis Leary's daughter Katy on Rescue Me) as Heather Miles, a precocious girl caught in a sex act during home ec and then ridiculed throughout school.
Describing Terri in details that come off too vivid would be doing a disservice to work as delicately wonderful as this. It isn't a matter of ruining twists by revealing spoilers — simply, I wish people to experience Terri for themselves, knowing as little as possible, the way I did.
Jacobs shows himself to be quite deft as a director by never hitting the wrong tone in this dramedy or trying to force laughs or pathos onto a scene. His cast helps him accomplish most of this, particularly Wysocki in his breakout role and the always reliable Reilly.
Terri belongs to that group of films that's likely to disappear eventually. It shouldn't — movies this special shouldn't vanish once the glare of awards season has passed, especially when only the smaller prize-givers noticed it in the first place.
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Labels: 10s, George C. Scott, John C. Reilly, K. Bates
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Wednesday, January 11, 2012
A whole new world
By Edward Copeland
It's hard to know where to begin describing a funny little gem such as Cedar Rapids. Certainly, more hilarious movies have been made. Granted, comedies boasting even bigger and more amazing ensembles entertained me during my moviewatching years. With the exception of Midnight in Paris though, no 2011 film has made me laugh more frequently than Cedar Rapids — then again, the last reputed comedy I saw was Bridesmaids and perhaps I just longed for something written by someone who knew how to structure a comedy and set up jokes to finally remove the taste of that piece of shit from my mouth.
Ed Helms, late of The Daily Show but a regular on The Office and charter member of The Hangover movie franchise, stars as Tim Lippe, a sheltered 34-year-old insurance agent in Brown Valley, Wisc. Tim lost his father at a young age and then his mother in his late teens. Bill Krogstad (Stephen Root), the owner of Brown Valley Insurance, thought he saw in Tim someone who was "going places," so he brought him into his agency, but Tim has never taken off. Roger Lemke (Thomas Lennon) is his company's star, bringing the agency back the coveted "Two Diamonds Award" from the annual AMSI insurance convention in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, for three years running.
As Krogstad anticipates Lemke attending and bringing a fourth consecutive award back to Brown Valley Insurance, Roger drops dead — of autoerotic asphyxiation no less. Krogstad can't attend himself because one of his daughters picked the weekend of the convention to get married, but he fears that rumors of the cause of Lemke's death could ruin their chances since the president of AMSI, Orin Helgesson (Kurtwood Smith), brings a moral and religious component to insurance. That makes the innocent Tim the obvious replacement.
Tim isn't completely innocent. He's currently engaged in his first affair with his seventh grade teacher Macy Vanderhei (Sigourney Weaver), but he's never flown on a plane and hasn't been to a city the size of Cedar Rapids. Krogstad gives Tim some tips, the most important being to avoid another insurance agent named Dean Ziegler (John C. Reilly).
Once Tim arrives at the hotel hosting at the convention, he gets hit left and right with the shocks of "the big city." He's approached by a hooker named Bree (Alia Shawkat, better known as Maeby Funke of the much-missed Arrested Development), though Tim fails to realize what she's offering. The desk clerk's request for a credit card imprint also knocks him offguard, but that's nothing compared to what happens when he gets to his room an an African American answers the door!
He calls Macy in a panic, but fortunately it's just another insurance agent attending the convention. Even better, it turns out to be one of Tim'a assigned roommates, Ronald Wilkes, and he's portrayed by Isiah Whitlock Jr. That makes it absolute heaven for fans of The Wire because if Whitlock's name doesn't ring a bell, he played the hilariously sleazy and corrupt state Sen. Clay "Sheeeeeeeeeeeeeet" Davis. Phil Johnston's screenplay even has two references to The Wire that Whitlock has said were in the script before he was cast.
Of course, they end up with a third roomie — the man Krogstad warned Tim about — Dean "Deanzie" Ziegler himself, who helps guide Tim to Sodom and Gomorrah's location in Cedar Rapids — or does he? At one point, Ronald asks Deanzie what's wrong with him. "What isn't wrong with me? I talk too much. I drink too much, I weigh too much. I piss people off," Ziegler replies. When Reilly really goes all in for a comedy, he truly dives in and he's hysterical. Ziegler definitely doesn't like how Helgesson tries to impose religion on the insurance business. "There's a separation between religion and insurance. It's in the Constitution," he insists.
The fourth member of the convention's comic quartet comes in the form of Anne Heche as Joan, nearly the female Ziegler. I didn't realize she was in Cedar Rapids and didn't even recognize her at first, but she's funny as hell too. Helms, Reilly, Whitlock and Heche combine to create an awesome comic foursome.
As if they weren't enough, Cedar Rapids also gives us the already mentioned Weaver, Root and Shawkat as well as Helms' former fellow Daily Show correspondent Rob Corddry and Mike O'Malley. I must make special mention of Kurtwood Smith. His role in Cedar Rapids isn't the funniest, but it's amazing how I always think of him as a comic actor now since I stumbled upon reruns of That '70s Show and the only reason I'll watch is the great comic work done by Smith and Debra Jo Rupp as the Forman parents. Such a switch from the days when he always seemed to be a great out-and-out villain as in RoboCop or Robert Sean Leonard's overbearing dad in Dead Poets Society.
The performers bring Johnston's first filmed screenplay to life (he's received an Independent Spirit Award nomination for it and Reilly is up for supporting actor, though I might have opted for Whitlock). Director Miguel Arteta keeps the zaniness moving (everyone involved in the turd that is Bridesmaids should watch this to learn how to make a comedy). Arteta sure has an eclectic resume, having directed episodes of TV shows as dissimilar as The Office, Ugly Betty, Six Feet Under and Homicide: Life on the Street and features such as Chuck and Buck and The Good Girl. Cedar Rapids definitely ends up being something he should take pride in having made.
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Labels: 10s, Homicide, John C. Reilly, Sigourney Weaver, Television, The Wire
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Thursday, February 24, 2011
The Last Troops to Withdraw
By J.D.
Casualties of War (1989) came out toward the end of the trend of Vietnam War movies in the 1980s after the likes of Oliver Stone, Stanley Kubrick and others had tried their hand at it. By the time Brian De Palma’s film came out the public had grown tired of this sub-genre and, despite glowing reviews from critics, Casualties did not perform as well as hoped at the box office.
Based on an actual incident that was reported by David Lang in The New Yorker in 1969 and which he later turned into a book, Casualties of War focuses on a group of American soldiers who rape and kill a young Vietnamese woman and how one tries to do something about it. Private Eriksson (Michael J. Fox) has only been in country for three weeks and is the quintessential inexperienced recruit. He looks up to (as do most of the men) Sergeant Meserve (Sean Penn), a battle-hardened veteran whose tour of duty is almost up.
It quickly becomes apparent that Meserve fits in perfectly with the madness of the war and that he enjoys killing because it makes him feel powerful — he gets off on it. If there were any last bits of humanity left in him, they are gone when a sniper kills his fellow long-timer comrade. We actually see the humanity dissipate in Meserve’s sad expression as he watches his friend taken away in a medical helicopter. It’s a beautifully acted moment by Sean Penn.
The man’s death puts Meserve and his men in a mean, vengeful mood. They are subsequently ordered to go on a long-range recon patrol and this provides them with an outlet for their aggression. Meserve makes it clear that they are going on an unplanned detour to a village and find a girl that they can have their way with. In private, Eriksson voices his concerns but goes along with it. Even though he doesn’t actually participate in the act, he is complicit because he doesn’t actually try to stop it.
Michael J. Fox was primarily known as a sitcom actor and for a string of lightweight comedies (Teen Wolf, The Secret of My Success, et al) but the underrated (if not flawed) Bright Lights, Big City (1988) hinted at a capacity for drama that he showcased to greater effect in Casualties of War. Fox does a nice job of conveying the moral dilemma that his character faces. He is the film’s moral center and the one we are meant to identify with. His scenes with Penn have the requisite intensity with Fox wisely underplaying to Sean Penn’s over-the-top sergeant.
Penn plays the obvious villain of the film and is a real monster. You can see it often in the psychotic gleam in his eyes. At times, his performance veers into caricature as he lays on the New York accent a little too thick and his grotesque facial expressions are a little too garish to be believable. That being said, one has to admire his fearlessness as an actor to play such a truly unlikable character. He and Fox are surrounded by an impressive cast of then-up-and-coming character actors, such as John C. Reilly, John Leguizamo, De Palma regular Don Harvey, Ving Rhames and Sam Robards. Harvey, in particular, is impressive as Penn’s amoral right-hand man and it’s a shame this fascinating actor hasn’t gotten more mainstream roles.
Penn (and the rest of the cast) are let down by David Rabe’s screenplay. He has essentially written a morality play but it resorts to broad strokes when shades of gray would have been much more effective (as in Mystic River which showcased Penn’s talents much more effectively). Rabe does a good job with the relationships between the soldiers and how the younger, more inexperienced ones are subservient to the veterans because that is their right — they’ve earned it due to their experience in combat. Casualties of War is a flawed film but a visually interesting one as is customary with De Palma’s body of work. He expertly uses the entire widescreen frame in many scenes showing off his command of composition. It’s a shame that the content of the film wasn’t up to the same quality as the style.
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Labels: 80s, De Palma, John C. Reilly, Kubrick, Oliver Stone, Sean Penn
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Monday, July 26, 2010
George Costanza's Dream Comes True in Cyrus
By Eddie Selover
A couple of years ago, watching Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead, I was seriously offended on behalf of Marisa Tomei for her having to participate in some fairly explicit sex scenes. The problem wasn’t Tomei, who looks more devastating than ever in her 40s. The problem was that she was in bed with the last actor on earth who should be seen unclothed (even a little bit): Philip Seymour Hoffman. Though Hoffman was great as always, the physical disconnect between them made it impossible to suspend disbelief... she was acting all turned on by him, and man, that was some acting.
Now, three years later, here is Tomei cast as a “sex angel” to the lumpish, skeevy John C. Reilly in Cyrus. She hasn't had a relationship in years, the movie would have us believe, but she's attracted to Reilly. Uh-huh. To add insult to injury, she also plays the mother of the spectacularly bloated and unattractive Jonah Hill. The unlikelihood of either of these gentlemen getting anywhere near a woman like Marisa Tomei isn’t the main problem with Cyrus, but it was the one that irritated me the most.
Reilly plays John, a film editor who has been divorced for several years and lives alone in a messy apartment, eating junk food and staring at his computer screen. As with the heroes of so many of today’s slacker movies, whether mumblecore or not, John is a slovenly loser with no looks, physique, hygiene, money or career prospects… and who yet manages to have giddy, happy sex with a hot woman who responds to his sincerity, or basic decency, or something. Cyrus opens with John’s unbelievably non-acrimonious ex-wife Jamie interrupting him in the middle of masturbation; later he meets Tomei while peeing in some bushes. Are these the sorts of moments that bring hot women into a man’s life? Only in the minds of male screenwriters who have spent way too much time staring at their computer screens.
So John and Tomei’s Molly hook up, and things are going great until he meets her son Cyrus. Fat and beady-eyed, Cyrus is an antisocial lout who has an unhealthy Oedipal obsession with his mom and no intention of sharing her with a boyfriend. (Hill, by the way, looks more like the child of Danny DeVito's Penguin than that of Marisa Tomei, but let it go.) The first third of the movie is standard comedy-of-social-awkwardness as this situation is set up, but as John moves closer, and eventually into Molly’s house, Cyrus begins a passive-aggressive campaign to break up the relationship. For a while, with the handheld camera moving through the bluish darkened rooms of the house, it’s like a horror movie, and you half expect Cyrus to pop out with a knife like Norman Bates. Then for the last third, the movie makes another shift in tone, and goes all soft and sensitive as we see how much Cyrus is hurting, and he and John forge a tentative reconciliation.
This is one shift too many for the audience, whom I felt were ready for something darker and edgier. There are suggestions of an incestuous relationship between Cyrus and Molly — she spends the night in his bed when he’s upset, he uses the bathroom while she’s showering, etc. But these scenes don’t go anywhere, and Molly is ultimately portrayed as a sane, sweet earth mother who has evidently played no part in making her son a borderline psychopath. Like Mildred Pierce, her only sin is loving her child so much that she’s blind to what a monster she’s created. Or hasn’t created. Again, these are screenwriter contrivances — everything that happens in the movie is for an immediate effect and has no grounding in psychological truth.
The performers are left to make the movie work, and it must be said that Reilly almost pulls it off. He’s a very likable actor, maybe because of the glints of suffering in the little raisin eyes set too close together in his doughy face. We’re with him all the way, and when Cyrus begins his campaign of lying and manipulation, we want John to come up with some clever strategies to beat the little bastard at his own game. But although the movie makes a couple of feints in this direction, evidently the writer/directors Mark and Jay Duplass aren’t up to writing a battle of wits. In fact, much of the movie was improvised by the performers, and several scenes have that repetitive, vamping tediousness that improvisation gets when there’s no inspiration behind it.
Catherine Keener fares particularly badly — she has now officially tilted her head, squinted compassionately and laughed unexpectedly in one too many movies. She plays Jamie, the ex who dumped John several years previously, but still hangs around solicitously, trying to get him to socialize and find happiness in a new relationship. Uh-huh. Cyrus is like a loser’s daydream in which he doesn’t have to change a thing about himself: everybody loves him anyway. Even Marisa Tomei.
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Labels: 10s, DeVito, John C. Reilly, Jonah Hill, Keener, P.S. Hoffman, Tomei
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Thursday, January 10, 2008
A Sucker for Cox
By Odienator
The double entendre jokes in Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story don't get any better than my title, but they share the screen with one of the more committed performances in a genre-spoofing movie. Walk Hard marks the third film in 2007's Judd Apatow triple crown, following the amusing but misogynistic Knocked Up (which he wrote and directed) and the hilarious and sweet Superbad (which he produced). Walk Hard also proved that the man who brought us The 40-Year-Old Virgin is not box-office infallible; this movie was a flop, and I'll bet it had something to do with the poster. Similar to Virgin's goofy Steve Carrell picture, Hard's poster features John C. Reilly, shirtless and goofy, paying homage to Jim Morrison. Of course, you need to be about 40 to get the reference, and most moviegoers hover around the age of 12. To them, Reilly must have looked like the poster boy for middle-age gay porn and I'm sure the title did nothing to disprove it: The Dewey Cox Story.
Perhaps the other reason why Walk Hard's box office numbers were flaccid is its marketing. I thought the film was going to be another in the seemingly endless line of bad parody movies such as Date Movie, Epic Movie and the way past its prime Scary Movie series. Walk Hard is definitely a spoof, but it's more than a series of gags thrown together haphazardly. It's closer to Blazing Saddles than Airplane!, a movie that tries to be a credible example of its target. Reilly is a good singer and an even better vocal mimic, and his performance anchors the film by becoming the one constant joke to which all the spoofy material sticks. For the most part, Walk Hard doesn't suck.
Cox comes onscreen first as a young boy who, true to musical biopic fashion, does something as a child that will haunt him until the final frame of film shoots out of the projector: He accidentally cuts his younger brother in half with a machete. The smaller Cox, who was far more brilliant than Dewey could ever be, doesn't survive, and Pa Cox (Raymond J. Barry) spends the rest of the film telling Dewey "the wrong son died." This gives Dewey a complex the film will use to explain his descent into the standard biopic excesses of sex, drugs and booze.
When Dewey is 14 (and played by the 42-year old Reilly), he runs off with his 12-year-old-girlfriend, Edith (played by 34-year-old Kristen Wiig). In order to make money, Cox waits tables at a juke joint where, according to Coming to America's Paul Bates, "people come to dance erotically." As men and women throw themselves into every sexual position imaginable while driven to frenzy by the club's soul singer, Cox wants a piece of the action on stage. He gets his big break when the club entertainment suffers several big breaks at the hands of a bookie. Dewey performs the singer's act verbatim, which, considering the Black-themed lyrics, comes off as surreal and hilarious. The people dance erotically anyway, and Cox is on the rise.
The Walk Hard of the title makes its appearance in a scene lifted from the Johnny Cash biopic Walk the Line. Dewey's audition goes horribly, and just when it looks like his career may be over, he channels his inner Man in Black and sings the song that will become his signature. Reilly sounds more like Johnny Cash than Joaquin Phoenix, and the song works as both parody and a country western tune. With the studio musicians (Chris Parnell, Matt Besser and Tim Meadows) behind him, Dewey hits the concert circuit and his song becomes a hit. Unfortunately, Dewey's familial guilt worsens as a result of a tragic accident occurring while his parents were dancing to his hit song, "The Wrong Son Died," Pa Cox shows up to inform him.
Once his career takes off, Cox is repeatedly seduced by temptation, which takes the guise of his bandleader Sam (Meadows). Every time Cox goes to the bathroom, he finds Sam behind the door partaking in some form of drugs. "You don't want none of this, Dewey!" Sam says, all the while making it impossible for Dewey to say no. As a result, Cox becomes an alcoholic and a drug addict, plowing through groupies both male and female while his fertile wife Edith (who must have 25 kids in this short period of Dewey's life) remains at home. While partaking in his affairs, Dewey meets his June Carter Cash clone, Darlene Madison (Jenna Fischer). This leads not only to the dissolution of his marriage to Edith, but also to a filthy song called "Let's Duet," where Dewey and Darlene sing more double entendres than can fit on a 45. "In my dreams, you're blowin' me," sings Dewey, "...some kisses..."
Like that which it mocks, Walk Hard takes us through various stages in Dewey's career, including his run-ins with famous people such as Elvis (played by Jack White of the White Stripes) and the Beatles (Paul is played by an actor you'd never expect). The swipes at the aforementioned are brutal enough (the Beatles wind up in what looks like a bad UFC match), but Apatow and director Jake Kasdan mine a small gem of genius when Cox pays tribute to Bob Dylan. Reilly's Dylan makes Cate Blanchett's imitation look like the bad Harpo Marx on drugs clone it is, and the song, "Royal Jelly," is a mishmash of nonsense that sounds a lot like some of Dylan's lousier material.
Walk Hard is full of little moments like these, ones that seem like throwaway gags but actually have some thought and construction behind them. Several times, the film reaches for a level of absurdity that is raucous and enjoyable, smoothing over some of its rougher patches. The songs are more than just jokes, and Reilly's versatility carries him from the deep rumble of Johnny Cash to the high notes of Roy Orbison (the Orbison song may be the best one in the movie). Reilly even gets to sing a disturbing yet touching song about his character's death during the credits. All the songs are first rate and perhaps we'll see Cox performing on Oscar night. (Don't we always?)
For all Walk Hard's verbal Cox jokes ("I need Cox," is one of the first lines we hear in the film), the piece de resistance has to be a completely gratuitous extended scene of male frontal nudity that somehow got past the prudes at the MPAA. As Dewey sits on the floor talking to his first wife during a hotel room orgy, his roadie Bert occupies the frame behind him. Or rather, a certain part of Bert. Reilly carries on a conversation with Bert's favorite toy, whose owner asks him for information and at one point, shares a beer with him. Reilly deserves his Golden Globe for not cracking up while carrying on a conversation with a guy while his junk is inches from his face. This scene is so popular that on NPR, one of the sleepy-voiced female hosts asked Jake Kasdan how he came up with the idea. Kasdan said he had seen an old Rolling Stones documentary where the entire band was full frontal nude for no reason. Bert's penis is far less scary than I'd imagine Keith Richards' to be. Richards' jammy was probably smoking a cigarette.
If you can only get to one Apatow movie from 2007, I suggest you get some McLovin, but if you can get to two, feast your eyes on some Cox.
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The double entendre jokes in Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story don't get any better than my title, but they share the screen with one of the more committed performances in a genre-spoofing movie. Walk Hard marks the third film in 2007's Judd Apatow triple crown, following the amusing but misogynistic Knocked Up (which he wrote and directed) and the hilarious and sweet Superbad (which he produced). Walk Hard also proved that the man who brought us The 40-Year-Old Virgin is not box-office infallible; this movie was a flop, and I'll bet it had something to do with the poster. Similar to Virgin's goofy Steve Carrell picture, Hard's poster features John C. Reilly, shirtless and goofy, paying homage to Jim Morrison. Of course, you need to be about 40 to get the reference, and most moviegoers hover around the age of 12. To them, Reilly must have looked like the poster boy for middle-age gay porn and I'm sure the title did nothing to disprove it: The Dewey Cox Story.
Perhaps the other reason why Walk Hard's box office numbers were flaccid is its marketing. I thought the film was going to be another in the seemingly endless line of bad parody movies such as Date Movie, Epic Movie and the way past its prime Scary Movie series. Walk Hard is definitely a spoof, but it's more than a series of gags thrown together haphazardly. It's closer to Blazing Saddles than Airplane!, a movie that tries to be a credible example of its target. Reilly is a good singer and an even better vocal mimic, and his performance anchors the film by becoming the one constant joke to which all the spoofy material sticks. For the most part, Walk Hard doesn't suck.
Cox comes onscreen first as a young boy who, true to musical biopic fashion, does something as a child that will haunt him until the final frame of film shoots out of the projector: He accidentally cuts his younger brother in half with a machete. The smaller Cox, who was far more brilliant than Dewey could ever be, doesn't survive, and Pa Cox (Raymond J. Barry) spends the rest of the film telling Dewey "the wrong son died." This gives Dewey a complex the film will use to explain his descent into the standard biopic excesses of sex, drugs and booze.
When Dewey is 14 (and played by the 42-year old Reilly), he runs off with his 12-year-old-girlfriend, Edith (played by 34-year-old Kristen Wiig). In order to make money, Cox waits tables at a juke joint where, according to Coming to America's Paul Bates, "people come to dance erotically." As men and women throw themselves into every sexual position imaginable while driven to frenzy by the club's soul singer, Cox wants a piece of the action on stage. He gets his big break when the club entertainment suffers several big breaks at the hands of a bookie. Dewey performs the singer's act verbatim, which, considering the Black-themed lyrics, comes off as surreal and hilarious. The people dance erotically anyway, and Cox is on the rise.
The Walk Hard of the title makes its appearance in a scene lifted from the Johnny Cash biopic Walk the Line. Dewey's audition goes horribly, and just when it looks like his career may be over, he channels his inner Man in Black and sings the song that will become his signature. Reilly sounds more like Johnny Cash than Joaquin Phoenix, and the song works as both parody and a country western tune. With the studio musicians (Chris Parnell, Matt Besser and Tim Meadows) behind him, Dewey hits the concert circuit and his song becomes a hit. Unfortunately, Dewey's familial guilt worsens as a result of a tragic accident occurring while his parents were dancing to his hit song, "The Wrong Son Died," Pa Cox shows up to inform him.
Once his career takes off, Cox is repeatedly seduced by temptation, which takes the guise of his bandleader Sam (Meadows). Every time Cox goes to the bathroom, he finds Sam behind the door partaking in some form of drugs. "You don't want none of this, Dewey!" Sam says, all the while making it impossible for Dewey to say no. As a result, Cox becomes an alcoholic and a drug addict, plowing through groupies both male and female while his fertile wife Edith (who must have 25 kids in this short period of Dewey's life) remains at home. While partaking in his affairs, Dewey meets his June Carter Cash clone, Darlene Madison (Jenna Fischer). This leads not only to the dissolution of his marriage to Edith, but also to a filthy song called "Let's Duet," where Dewey and Darlene sing more double entendres than can fit on a 45. "In my dreams, you're blowin' me," sings Dewey, "...some kisses..."
Like that which it mocks, Walk Hard takes us through various stages in Dewey's career, including his run-ins with famous people such as Elvis (played by Jack White of the White Stripes) and the Beatles (Paul is played by an actor you'd never expect). The swipes at the aforementioned are brutal enough (the Beatles wind up in what looks like a bad UFC match), but Apatow and director Jake Kasdan mine a small gem of genius when Cox pays tribute to Bob Dylan. Reilly's Dylan makes Cate Blanchett's imitation look like the bad Harpo Marx on drugs clone it is, and the song, "Royal Jelly," is a mishmash of nonsense that sounds a lot like some of Dylan's lousier material.
Walk Hard is full of little moments like these, ones that seem like throwaway gags but actually have some thought and construction behind them. Several times, the film reaches for a level of absurdity that is raucous and enjoyable, smoothing over some of its rougher patches. The songs are more than just jokes, and Reilly's versatility carries him from the deep rumble of Johnny Cash to the high notes of Roy Orbison (the Orbison song may be the best one in the movie). Reilly even gets to sing a disturbing yet touching song about his character's death during the credits. All the songs are first rate and perhaps we'll see Cox performing on Oscar night. (Don't we always?)
For all Walk Hard's verbal Cox jokes ("I need Cox," is one of the first lines we hear in the film), the piece de resistance has to be a completely gratuitous extended scene of male frontal nudity that somehow got past the prudes at the MPAA. As Dewey sits on the floor talking to his first wife during a hotel room orgy, his roadie Bert occupies the frame behind him. Or rather, a certain part of Bert. Reilly carries on a conversation with Bert's favorite toy, whose owner asks him for information and at one point, shares a beer with him. Reilly deserves his Golden Globe for not cracking up while carrying on a conversation with a guy while his junk is inches from his face. This scene is so popular that on NPR, one of the sleepy-voiced female hosts asked Jake Kasdan how he came up with the idea. Kasdan said he had seen an old Rolling Stones documentary where the entire band was full frontal nude for no reason. Bert's penis is far less scary than I'd imagine Keith Richards' to be. Richards' jammy was probably smoking a cigarette.
If you can only get to one Apatow movie from 2007, I suggest you get some McLovin, but if you can get to two, feast your eyes on some Cox.
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Labels: 00s, Apatow, Beatles, Blanchett, Dylan, Elvis, John C. Reilly
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Tuesday, June 12, 2007
This Time, The Accent's on Action
BLOGGER'S NOTE: This post is part of the Action Heroine Blog-a-thon being coordinated by Nathaniel R. at The Film Experience Blog.
By Odienator
Meryl Streep is many things: She is to accents what Lon Chaney was to faces. She is the most nominated actress in Oscar history. She is equally at home in comedy or drama, and she's sometimes too mannered in both. She was not, however, anybody's idea of an action hero. Both Sigourney Weaver and Linda Hamilton had cornered the market when The River Wild came along, so casting Meryl as the action heroine was a bit of stunt casting akin to asking Kate Hepburn to beat someone's ass with nunchucks. Imagine Bette Davis flying through the air while a huge explosion went off behind her, followed by her doing a somersault while holding the two guns she'll use to blow away the villain mid flip. As she lands, she'll look at the bullet ridden body of her nemesis, shake her head and say "Peter, Peter, Peter!" This seemed less preposterous than casting Meryl Streep as an action heroine.
Director Curtis Hanson has been known for making odd casting choices that somehow paid off. Before he put Kim Basinger in L.A. Confidential and after he put freaky French femme fou Isabelle Huppert in The Bedroom Window, Hanson cast Streep as Gail, the feisty mom who takes her son river rafting for his 10th birthday. Her former life as a river guide, coupled with her missing Deliverance when it was in theaters, gives her the false notion this is a good idea. She is joined by her workaholic husband, Tom (David Straithairn), who originally turned down her invitation. Their family bonding adventure turns into a nightmare when she runs afoul of Wade (Kevin Bacon) and Terry (John C. Reilly), two thieves who have stolen a large sum of money.
When Wade falls overboard and nearly drowns, Tom saves his bacon. Wade repays him by kidnapping Gail and her kid, forcing her to help the thieves escape with the stolen loot. To succeed, Gail must navigate through a treacherous rapids section known as the Gauntlet, a stretch of water as violent and terrible as the Clint Eastwood movie that shares its name.
Once the action kicks in, Streep silences any doubt that she can hang with the Big Girls. With her slightly dieseled arms, she paddles through the Gauntlet assisted by Robert Elswit's cin-tog and Jerry Goldsmith's score. Though the outcome is never in doubt, seeing Streep in an action sequence apparently doing her own stunts adds a level of suspense and excitement to the proceedings. Even though the film takes some of the action out of the hands of its heroine, there is still enough to make Streep credible. She also gets to handle a gun, something every action heroine from Pam Grier on down should have the opportunity to do in her film.
Perhaps the flimsiness of the plot prohibited Hanson from casting a known action film actress in the role. One look at Weaver or Hamilton and you knew they'd immediately ram an oar into the villain's orifice. While they may have been better at outrunning aliens and cyborgs turned politicians, Streep was more masterful at handling the shadings of family tension that make up the majority of The River Wild. Watch how her subtle, girly reactions to the younger Wade's flirtations turn into outright hatred of the character when he puts her family in danger.
The one thing Gail has in common with her sisters in action, Ripley and Sarah Connor, is using her maternal instinct as the catalyst to kick ass. This notion seems quaint nowadays, with younger characters such as Lara Croft and Keira Knightley's babe from that Disney Ride movie putting a boot to booty just for the thrill of it all. Gail doesn't get into as many fights or set pieces as her contemporaries, but the character does enough to be allowed entry into the Women in Action Blog-a-thon.
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Labels: 90s, Bette, Blog-a-thons, Eastwood, John C. Reilly, K. Hepburn, Keira Knightley, Kevin Bacon, Sigourney Weaver, Streep
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Monday, April 30, 2007
To err is human, to forgive canine
By Edward Copeland
Mike White dwells in the realm of the uncomfortable as a writer, from his strange sleeper Chuck and Buck to an episode of TV's Freaks and Geeks, "Kim Kelly Is My Friend," that made NBC so nervous, it refused to ever air it. He's also written more palatable fare such as the script for the fun School of Rock.
Now, White makes his directing debut with Year of the Dog, a mixed bag that's more Chuck than Rock.
Saturday Night Live alum Molly Shannon stars as Peggy and while I could always take or leave her work before, she unquestionably is the glue that holds Year of the Dog together as well as it can be.
Peggy's life revolves around her precious beagle Pencil and it is torn apart when Pencil unexpectedly dies, the victim of toxic poisoning, spinning the solitary Peggy out of control. As with most of White's writing, Year of the Dog mixes satire and the darkly comic with pathos and here, the mix doesn't quite hold together except for Shannon, who seems to be the only performer in the talented cast who grounds the entire enterprise in reality.
She's definitely a believer when animal rescue worker Newt (Peter Sarsgaard) tells her he understands her grief because animals aren't petty and they don't backstab the way people do. (I'm not one of the borderline crazy animal rights activists, but it's harder to argue with the fact that I've been fucked over far more often by humans than by animals.)
Of course, Newt is as damaged as Peggy (and most of the characters in a Mike White universe). Really, is Peggy's sister-in-law Bret (Laura Dern) any crazier in her obsession with her children's safety than others are shown in their concerns about animals? (A delousing incident isn't just tearing apart the first grade, as her husband Pier (Thomas McCarthy) says, but "the entire community," she insists.)
When Peggy gives her niece the gift of a DVD of Babe, Bret worries that it might be "too dramatic" for the child. The problem is that it's not clear what White's attitude toward his characters really is. They all seem to be being held up for ridicule, but Shannon is the only actor whose character remains consistent throughout.
Dern is shrill and silly at most points, but then is expected to be taken as a truly concerned person later. Sarsgaard suffers from the same problem. The only members of the cast who seem to create a character and stay true to it throughout are Josh Pais as Peggy's boss, John C. Reilly as her neighbor and, most especially, Regina King as Peggy's co-worker, who thinks she just needs a good lay.
Shannon's Peggy almost manages to save the entire enterprise, truly creating a sympathetic character who fills the loneliness of her life with the unconditional love of her pet while not sacrificing her character's essential instability.
It is too bad that White's entire film couldn't hold together as well as Peggy, because her tale is a touching one and could have easily managed the right recipe of laughs and tears. Instead, after it's over, you're more likely to leave scratching your head as if you've got a bad case of fleas. Then again, maybe it's that first-grade lice outbreak. Either way, Year of the Dog needs some kind of treatment.
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Mike White dwells in the realm of the uncomfortable as a writer, from his strange sleeper Chuck and Buck to an episode of TV's Freaks and Geeks, "Kim Kelly Is My Friend," that made NBC so nervous, it refused to ever air it. He's also written more palatable fare such as the script for the fun School of Rock.
Now, White makes his directing debut with Year of the Dog, a mixed bag that's more Chuck than Rock.
Saturday Night Live alum Molly Shannon stars as Peggy and while I could always take or leave her work before, she unquestionably is the glue that holds Year of the Dog together as well as it can be.
Peggy's life revolves around her precious beagle Pencil and it is torn apart when Pencil unexpectedly dies, the victim of toxic poisoning, spinning the solitary Peggy out of control. As with most of White's writing, Year of the Dog mixes satire and the darkly comic with pathos and here, the mix doesn't quite hold together except for Shannon, who seems to be the only performer in the talented cast who grounds the entire enterprise in reality.
She's definitely a believer when animal rescue worker Newt (Peter Sarsgaard) tells her he understands her grief because animals aren't petty and they don't backstab the way people do. (I'm not one of the borderline crazy animal rights activists, but it's harder to argue with the fact that I've been fucked over far more often by humans than by animals.)
Of course, Newt is as damaged as Peggy (and most of the characters in a Mike White universe). Really, is Peggy's sister-in-law Bret (Laura Dern) any crazier in her obsession with her children's safety than others are shown in their concerns about animals? (A delousing incident isn't just tearing apart the first grade, as her husband Pier (Thomas McCarthy) says, but "the entire community," she insists.)
When Peggy gives her niece the gift of a DVD of Babe, Bret worries that it might be "too dramatic" for the child. The problem is that it's not clear what White's attitude toward his characters really is. They all seem to be being held up for ridicule, but Shannon is the only actor whose character remains consistent throughout.
Dern is shrill and silly at most points, but then is expected to be taken as a truly concerned person later. Sarsgaard suffers from the same problem. The only members of the cast who seem to create a character and stay true to it throughout are Josh Pais as Peggy's boss, John C. Reilly as her neighbor and, most especially, Regina King as Peggy's co-worker, who thinks she just needs a good lay.
Shannon's Peggy almost manages to save the entire enterprise, truly creating a sympathetic character who fills the loneliness of her life with the unconditional love of her pet while not sacrificing her character's essential instability.
It is too bad that White's entire film couldn't hold together as well as Peggy, because her tale is a touching one and could have easily managed the right recipe of laughs and tears. Instead, after it's over, you're more likely to leave scratching your head as if you've got a bad case of fleas. Then again, maybe it's that first-grade lice outbreak. Either way, Year of the Dog needs some kind of treatment.
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Labels: 00s, John C. Reilly, L. Dern, Television
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