Wednesday, August 03, 2011
Fighting aliens in Old West, Bond brings out best in Indiana Jones
By J.D.
Jon Favreau has certainly come a long way since his independent film roots with Swingers (1996), the film he wrote and starred in. Over the years, he’s increasingly spent more time behind the camera than in front of it, directing Made (2001). The modest success of that film transitioned him to studio films with larger budgets such as Elf (2003) and Zathura (2005). Then came Iron Man (2008), his most ambitious effort to that point, and he rolled the dice on casting Robert Downey Jr. as his leading man. The gamble paid off and the film was a massive success, paving the way for the inevitable sequel. Rushed into production, the end result was a commercial success but a critical failure, which upped the stakes for his next film, Cowboys & Aliens (2011), an adaptation of the graphic novel of the same name by Scott Mitchell Rosenberg.
The premise is an intriguing hybrid of the science fiction and Western genres with an alien invasion set in 1873 New Mexico. To hedge his bets, Favreau corralled Daniel Craig and Harrison Ford to headline his film, which caused epic seismic ripples through the fanboy community at the prospects of seeing the actors who played James Bond and Indiana Jones in the same film together. As a result, expectations were understandably high. Could Favreau and company deliver the goods or would this be another Wild Wild West (1999)?
A man wakes up in the middle of nowhere wounded and with a strange futuristic device strapped to his wrist. He has no idea who he is or how he got there. Three men on horseback show up assuming he’s an escape convict and try to take him in. He quickly and brutally dispatches them, taking their gear and heading towards the nearest town — the former mining colony of Absolution. He eventually learns that his name is Jake Lonergan (Daniel Craig), a notorious outlaw wanted by the law for a variety of offences. One of which was robbing local cattle baron Col. Woodrow Dolarhyde (Harrison Ford) of his gold. When he learns that Lonergan is in Absolution, Dolarhyde and him men intend to lynch the outlaw in retribution.
However, a strange light appears in the sky just as Dolarhyde arrives into town. The device on Lonergan’s wrist activates and the light turns out to be several alien spacecraft that proceed to blast the town to smithereens and kidnap several of its townsfolk. Lonergan discovers that his wrist device is a weapon, which he uses to take down one of the alien craft. The film sets up Dolarhyde as a mean son of a bitch while Lonergan is a no-nonsense criminal. They represent two unstoppable forces of nature and one of the pleasures of this film is when they have to put aside their differences, repel the alien invaders and rescue the kidnapped townsfolk.
For years, Harrison Ford has made bad choices in the films he’s decided to be in and phoned in one-note performances, playing the same gruff character, but with Cowboys & Aliens acting against someone like Daniel Craig has inspired him to bring his A-game. Ford actually looks interested and engaged in the material and the role. It’s great to see him go up against Craig and their scenes together crackle with intensity and tension. Best of all, Ford has two scenes that expose his character’s gruff exterior and reveal a more vulnerable side. They are poignant and heartfelt because we’ve become invested in these characters by this point. This is the best Ford has been in years and reminds one when he used to play characters we cared about.
Craig adds another impressive man of action to his roster. He excels at playing edgy tough guys and is well cast as the enigmatic outlaw. Favreau does a good job of surrounding Craig and Ford with a solid ensemble cast of character actors. You’ve got Clancy Brown as the upstanding town preacher Meachum, Sam Rockwell as Doc, the mild-mannered saloon owner, Keith Carradine as Sheriff John Taggart, the always watchable Adam Beach as Nat Colorado, Dolarhyde’s right-hand man, and Olivia Wilde as a mysterious woman named Ella whose exotic beauty gives her an almost otherworldly aura. Hell, Favreau even throws Walt Goggins in for good measure as a member of Lonergan’s gang.
Favreau has all the traditional Western iconography down cold and the fun of Cowboys & Aliens is seeing these motifs clash with the science fiction elements. So, we see cowboys on horseback being chased by fast-moving alien spacecraft. This film doesn’t stray from the conventions of either genre or try to reinvent them but instead merges and fulfills them in a crowd-pleasing way. Cowboys & Aliens has impressive special effects, nasty-looking aliens, several exciting action sequences, and two cool heroes to root for. This may not be the classic that people were hoping for but it is a very entertaining film in its own right and sometimes that’s enough.
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Labels: 10s, Daniel Craig, Harrison Ford, K. Carradine, Robert Downey Jr., Sam Rockwell
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Tuesday, November 30, 2010
Sometimes you need some mind candy
By Edward Copeland
Though I saw it during one of the blog's hiatuses and didn't review it, I really enjoyed the first Iron Man. Based on the reviews, I expected a little less from its sequel, but damn if I didn't enjoy Iron Man 2 just as much as the original. This is my kind of mindless, comic-book inspired entertainment: sleek, funny, well-acted and just the right length, resisting the urge of so many action films to pad their running times.
As in the first film, the key to its success is Robert Downey Jr. as weapons magnate turned peacenik/Iron Man. He's charming, witty and really has more personality than any other superhero in the history of superhero screen incarnations. He's rich and fun loving, still loves to knock back some drinks or to race in the Monaco Grand Prix and he gives very entertaining witness testimony at a Senate hearing. (If Downey weren't enough to make the scene a blast, they cast Garry Shandling as the jackass senator to ensure that the sequence is a hoot.) Stark may save the world, but he doesn't mope like Batman, he's not perfect like Superman and you know he's having a good time saving the world and probably getting laid as well.
When it was announced that Jon Favreau was directing the first Iron Man, it was viewed as an odd choice, but really Favreau, who repeats those duties here as well as playing Stark's driver, makes perfect sense. He's the man who wrote Swingers and the Tony Stark character as portrayed by Downey is so money and he knows it, only he's not a pretender as Favreau and Vince Vaughn's characters were in the film that begat that phrase, Stark's the real deal.
Ironically, in another funny performance, the would-be "swinger" of Iron Man 2 is Sam Rockwell playing rival weapons magnate Justin Hammer who dreams of living the Stark lifestyle, both businesswise and otherwise. He's the corporate villain of the movie, but he's just as funny. In fact, the action scenes when they happen, though they deliver, mostly are by the numbers. It's the comic tone that makes this series so much more fun than the brooding or goody-goodness of the others in this genre.
Terrence Howard has been replaced in the role of Lt. Col. James Rhodes by Don Cheadle and while Howard is a fine actor, Cheadle actually is an improvement because he has an innate levity that Howard doesn't so he meshes better with Downey and the rest of the cast.
Of course, the real villain of Iron Man 2 is Mickey Rourke as Ivan Vanko, a Russian physicist whose family feels ruined by Stark's father (the great John Slattery, who only appears in old film footage — and with brown hair!) and vows to seek revenge on Tony Stark, a task Hammer unwittingly helps him to carry out while he thinks he's using Vanko to gain an edge in the arms business.
There also is a story strand involving Samuel L. Jackson as Nick Fury, which I guess has something to do with a league of comic-book heroes called The S.H.I.E.L.D. that Stark's father helped to form and The Avengers Institute (though I don't think it involves Emma Peel), but I'm not up on my Marvel history to know that backstory, though it hardly matters. However, Jackson does deliver Fury with the same vocal cadence he used as Jules in Pulp Fiction.
Still, there isn't a weak link in the cast which includes Gwyneth Paltrow, who I tend not to like outside of The Royal Tenenbaums. If this weren't a sequel to a comic-book adaptation, saying it deserved consideration for ensemble acting awards would be taken seriously.
Justin Theroux wrote the screenplay and also came up with the story for Tropic Thunder, but many may know him best as an actor, especially for his roles in David Lynch's Mulholland Drive and as Brenda's neighbor on HBO's Six Feet Under.
I tend to frown upon endless sequels in series. I liked the first two X-Men movies, but the third one stunk and I didn't even bother to see Wolverine. Still, I had so much fun turning off my brain and enjoying both installments of Iron Man, I wouldn't object to another even though I know the odds are against a third time being a charm.
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Labels: 10s, Gwyneth Paltrow, HBO, John Slattery, Lynch, Mickey Rourke, Robert Downey Jr., Sam Rockwell, Samuel L. Jackson, Sequels, Shandling, Television
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Monday, April 05, 2010
Live and learn
By Edward Copeland
You can never really claim that a year in movies has an overriding theme, but if you could, 2009's would be that so many of the better films were dependent on a single performance that almost single-handedly raised his or her film to a higher plane. You saw it with Jeff Bridges in Crazy Heart to Sam Rockwell in Moon and Tilda Swinton in Julia. This is most decidedly the case with An Education, which would probably be a fine film anyway but becomes an even better one with Carey Mulligan as its lead.
Mulligan stars as Jenny, a bright 16-year-old attending an all-girls school in the London suburbs in 1961 in presumed preparation for her eventual enrollment at Oxford. She's smart, funny and talented and can't help but show it, even if it means often offending those around her, including teachers such as Miss Stubbs (Olivia Williams, unrecognizable from those who only know her from Rushmore) and her stuck-in-the-mud father (Alfred Molina). As many smart teens can be, Jenny thinks she knows a lot more than she really does and, unfortunately, she suffers for it in the end.
One day, while walking home from concert rehearsal with her cello in a driving rainstorm, a handsome thirtysomething stranger named David (Peter Saarsgard) charms Jenny into his car and before long, despite the age difference, the two are dating, despite Jenny's insistence that she's hanging on to her virginity until she turns 17.
Jenny's classmates find it quite chic that she's seeing an older man while her teacher and especially the school's stern headmistress (the always reliable Emma Thompson) give her strong warnings, some threatening her future at the school. Her parents (Molina and Cara Seymour) would probably be similarly suspicious, but David manages to seduce them at a faster rate than he does Jenny. The sometimes veiled (and sometimes not-so-veiled) anti-Semitism doesn't even seem to factor in even though David is Jewish.
Before long, her parents are allowing Jenny to go on overnight trips with David and even a journey to Paris, all under the assumption that David's "aunt" will be along as a chaperon. David and Jenny's clubbing and traveling companions are usually Danny and Helen (Dominic Cooper and Rosamund Pike) and some of their actions, as well as David's, should clue Jenny in to the idea that her boyfriend might not be all that he claims to be, but the heart of a first love has a terrible defect that allows for the masking of a significant other's defects.
Everything hits the fan soon after David takes the big leap and proposes marriage to Jenny, who is torn since her whole life had been geared toward continuing her education at Oxford. Her father, who'd supported the idea her entire life, is quick to abandon it for a good marriage because, really, what career can she expect to have? Even Thompson's headmistress tells her there are more opportunities than just teaching for young women now: There's also the civil service.
The sparse, deliberate and well-written screenplay by Nick Hornby was adapted from the memoir by Lynn Barber and smoothly directed by Lone Scherfig. The performers all do well, especially Molina and Williams. Sarsgaard's British accent isn't even half bad. If the film has a weakness, its final scenes seem rushed to try to tack on somewhat of an unnecessary happy ending that seems out of place with what went before.
However, as far as Mulligan goes, a star is born. She is so beguiling that the overwhelming number of comparisons of her to Audrey Hepburn certainly seem earned. While you are watching Mulligan in An Education (and I don't recall any scene she's not in), you can't take your eyes off her. It's not often that you see a performance from a relative newcomer that immediately makes you anxious to see what she does next. Carey Mulligan is an actress to watch.
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Labels: 00s, A. Hepburn, Carey Mulligan, Emma Thompson, Jeff Bridges, Sam Rockwell, Tilda Swinton
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Thursday, April 01, 2010
A different space odyssey
By Edward Copeland
As 2009 becomes a more distant memory, I keep discovering movie gems from that year that not only barely crossed my film radar but only now, thanks to an extremely lengthy Netflix waiting list, didn't land in my DVD player until this week. Thankfully, it did finally arrive in my mailbox, because Moon turns out to be another in what is ending up being one of the better recent years in films (not that you could judge by the even-expanded list of Oscar nominees for best picture) with an absolutely fantastic performance by Sam Rockwell giving what is, essentially, a one-man show.
Moon is the second film directed by Duncan Jones, who provided the story for screenwriter Nathan Parker. Jones has been famous, more or less, for his entire life, but that was for the name he was given at birth: He was born Zowie Bowie, the son of the famous rock star David, but not only did Zowie not seem a name suitable for an adult, he jettisoned the last name professionally as well. It wouldn't matter what name he directed Moon under because the man did a damn good job helming this picture.
The film invites comparisons to Kubrick's classic 2001: A Space Odyssey, but it is neither ripoff nor homage and stands firmly on its own cinematic feet. Rockwell stars as Sam Bell, a man who is nearing the end of a three-year stint on the far-side of the moon running a harvesting operation that collects Helium-3, which has been found to be the answer to earth's energy problems in the future.
Sam is anxious to get back home to his wife Tess (Dominique McElligott) and their young daughter Eve (Rosie Shaw). The solitary life of being a one-man operation whose sole companion is a computer/robot named GERTY (voice of Kevin Spacey), sort of a kinder, gentler HAL 9000 (substituting a yellow smiley face for HAL's bright red eye), just isn't enough for Sam anymore.
Though Moon was made on a relatively small budget and without the expensive CGI effects you might expect in a sci-fi film, the film defies the odds with its impressive art and set decoration and moonscapes to make it appear to look like much more was spent than actually was. More importantly, it doesn't need them because as in 2001, this is the old kind of sci-fi where the more important part of the story is its ideas, not its effects.
There are many things I would love to talk about relating to Moon and especially Rockwell's magnificent work. Unfortunately, going into much detail about either would give away plot essentials and ruin the enjoyment for future discoverers. You just have to trust me that it's worth your time to take this voyage.
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Labels: 00s, Kubrick, Netflix, Sam Rockwell, Spacey
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Friday, February 22, 2008
The best Malick film Malick never made
By Edward Copeland
I've never made it a secret that the films of Terrence Malick aren't my cup of tea. So when many reviews of Andrew Dominik's The Assassination of Jesse James By the Coward Robert Ford compared the film to Malick last fall, it dampened my enthusiasm for rushing out to see this 160 minute movie. That was a mistake, because now that I've caught up with it on DVD, I wish I could have seen it in a theater, not only because it is as beautiful as most Malick films, but because it's a near-great film with solid writing and acting that wears its length spectacularly well, something Malick films haven't done for me.
First and foremost, I have to cite the greatest asset of Jesse James: Roger Deakins' remarkable cinematography, for which he received an Oscar nomination alongside his separate nomination for No Country for Old Men.
This year's crop of cinematography nominees may be the strongest in the category I've seen in a long time. In addition to Deakins' nominations, there also is great work by Janusz Kaminski for The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, Seamus McGarvey for Atonement and Robert Elswit's magnificent work in the otherwise blah There Will Be Blood.
I think Elswit likely will win Sunday, but Deakins' work on Jesse James really deserves the prize, especially since Deakins now holds seven Oscar nominations without a win. I hope I'm wrong Sunday, because his work on The Assassination of Jesse James By the Coward Robert Ford stands heads and shoulders above the others in this brutally strong field.
However, unlike your typical Malick feature, there is more than meets the eye in Jesse James. Director Dominik adapted the script from the novel by Ron Hansen, and he uses a free-flowing narrative, punctuated frequently by an omniscient yet unidentified narrator, to tell the story of the man who killed the famous outlaw.
As the first title character, Brad Pitt gives one of his best performances, an alternately charming and chilling turn that is as tightly coiled as Joe Pesci as Tommy in Goodfellas.
Casey Affleck does well as the title's other name as well, though the Academy's decision to place him in supporting is questionable at best, though not nearly one of its worst lead/supporting categorization mistakes. Affleck nicely mixes the naive and calculating parts of the young Robert Ford, who, as Jesse points out, is either a lot like James or merely wants to be the legend.
The rest of the ensemble does equally well, including Paul Schneider, Jeremy Renner and Sam Rockwell as various members of the James gang and Sam Shepard as Jesse's older brother Frank.
What makes The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford so compelling is its entire construction. For a film that runs 2 hours and 40 minutes, it never lags and its stylistic flourishes only enhance the tale, never distracting from the narrative itself.
Also, unlike most Westerns of the past few decades, the film's mission doesn't seem to include deconstructing the myths to say something larger about the genre. Instead, it just dazzles the eye, entrances the viewer and tells a fine, oft-told tale.
One final note about a great aspect of the film: In a time where more often than not, musical scores tend to stomp on the movies they serve, the music by Nick Cave and Warren Ellis is subtle, evocative and one of the finest movie scores I've heard in some time.
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Labels: 00s, B. Affleck, Brad Pitt, C. Affleck, Malick, Pesci, Sam Rockwell, Shepard, Zemeckis
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