With “Cop Out” invading the megaplex, I had no choice but to dedicate this week’s MSN Movies gallery celebrates the specific magic that is the American buddy-cop movie.
Really, I’m just doing my part to keep fine folks like Billy Rosewood and Pep Streebeck off the ash-heap of history.
Yeah, you heard me. Pep F*cking Streebeck. That’s why “Rush Hour” didn’t make the list, incidentally; everything Chris Tucker tries to do in those movies, he owes to Mr. Tom Hanks and his delightful affectations.
It’s Friday. There’s movies afoot. I’d say something pithy, but today’s a big writing day and I’m already behind, so let’s just get going, shall we?
“Cop Out“: Hey, remember the ’80s? Kevin Smith’s first movie as a director for hire certainly hopes that you do, since nostalgia is really all it has going for it. Well, that and Tracy Morgan’s line reading of “It’s not for me, it’s for the table.” My review should be up soon. UPDATE: Finally!
“The Crazies“: George A. Romero’s understandably obscure 1973 satire gets a shot of adrenaline in Breck Eisner’s proficient genre update, which improves upon its source in virtually every way. And why isn’t Timothy Olyphant a bigger star? Dude’s awesome!
“L’Enfer d’Henri-Georges Clouzot“: Serge Bromberg and Ruxandra Medrea Annonier resurrect Clouzot’s abandoned 1964 psychothriller in this enthralling documentary, which would be worth seeing if it consisted entirely of Romy Schneider B-roll. But it’s so much more.
“Last Train Home”: When you hear the term “migrant worker”, you probably think of the laborers that fuel America’s produce industry. In China, the term means something else — people who leave their villages for work in industrial factories in cities across the country. Lixin Fan’s powerful documentary follows two of them as they head back to visit the children they left behind. Susan gives props.
“The Maid”: Sebastian Silva’s drama about a servant (Catalina Saavedra) desperate to maintain her position in her employers’ household has been rolling through the festival circuit for a while now, but I still haven’t managed to catch up to it. (Stupid conflicting schedules.) Jason and Susan liked it well enough.
“The Messenger“: There have been plenty of movies made about the human cost of war, but Oren Moverman’s one is different: It’s a piercing drama about two soldiers tasked with informing families their loved one won’t be coming home. Ben Foster, Woody Harrelson and Samantha Morton give thoroughly lived-in performances, and Moverman announces himself as a director of considerable skill and intelligence. See this, would you?
“The White Stripes Under Great White Northern Lights“: Jack and Meg rock their way across Canada in this striking concert movie, which feels a little more intimate than the usual musical follow-along. Sure, you’ll be able to pick it up on DVD in a couple of weeks, but wouldn’t you rather see it with a crowd?
My latest MSN DVD column is up, featuring “The Informant!” and “The House of the Devil” — two very contemporary films that cloak themselves in the trappings of the 1970s and the 1980s, respectively.
And the new issue of NOW is on the stands, where you’ll find my interview with Breck Eisner, who’s just remade “The Crazies”. Sometime later today they’ll post my Q&A with Oren Moverman, director of “The Messenger”, and I’ll throw up a link when they do. (UPDATE: Thrown!)
But now I have a lot of work ahead of me, so if it’s okay with you guys I’ll just post this and get back to it …
My latest MSN DVD column still hasn’t gone up, so your distraction today is the AV Club’s newest “I Watched This on Purpose” — in which Tasha Robinson tackles Rodrigo Garcia’s utterly forgettable “Passengers”, the plane-crash-survivors drama with Anne Hathaway and Patrick Wilson.
Spoilers abound, obviously, since “Passengers” is a movie with a Really Big Twist, and the nature and execution of that twist is central to the movie’s failure. (Funny, there’s another movie out there right now with the same problem.)
But then, “Passengers” is the kind of movie that arrives pre-spoiled, in that it’s entirely awful. So jump right in!
I’m off to a screening of another 3D movie this morning — which is perhaps not the best time to click over to io9 and discover an article called “Science Proves 3-D Movies Hurt Your Brain“.
Click through for the details, including a video that demonstrates exactly what the process does to your poor synapses.
As someone who didn’t even get the hint of a headache during “Avatar”, I’m apparently one of the lucky ones … but of course, I only saw it in Real3D. The poor bastards who see it in IMAX never had a chance.
“Shutter Island” pulled in an impressive $40.2 million over the weekend, easily topping the box-office charts and giving Martin Scorsese his biggest opening yet.
This is good, I guess. One wants to see one’s favourite filmmakers do well, even if their latest offerings isn’t exactly good.
Quite a few of my colleagues are struggling with the same issue — with “Shutter Island”, Scorsese has delivered what’s basically a gorgeously made, utterly inconsequential genre picture — a film with even less weight than “The Color of Money”, the movie we tend to bring up when discussing the director’s work for hire.
The better comparison, of course is “Cape Fear” — an overwrought piffle that started out as a tribute to the movies Scorsese loved as a youngster, and metastasized into a ludicrous, overdirected mess.
In his interesting Slate essay, Elbert Ventura argues that Scorsese has spent the last decade or so sliding from his pedestal, and the American critical community is largely too polite to call him on it. (I’d say the slide began earlier, when he started his run of Oscar-baiting prestige pictures in the 1990s, but then I’ve never had much patience for “The Age of Innocence”.)
Glenn Kenny mulls a similar case at The Auteurs, with examples and everything. And the link to that piece on his personal blog has generated a very readable comment thread.
Check ‘em out. And if you’ve seen “Shutter Island”, what did you think? Intriguing exercise in genre reclamation, or empty affectation? Or were you just in it for the atmosphere?
Remember when NBC tried to market a summer of re-runs to its audience with this magical slogan?
If you haven’t seen it, it’s new to you!
Well, it turns out that philosophy can apply to just about anything. Like, say, werewolves. And if you were a twelve-year-old girl and your only exposure to the myth of the shape-shifter was a certain series of squee-tastic novels, then you might take it upon yourself to defend your precious concept from those vile Hollywood parasites who might dare to infringe upon it.
Which brings us to this marvelous Defamer piece, reprinting an angry open letter to Universal that somehow ended up posted at Latino Review. Seems someone knows a ripoff when she smells it:
This movie was a complete waste and I feel that it offends ALL Twilight Fans around the world, that including myself. For one, it was a COMPLETE remakingof the Wolf Pack from the Twilight Saga: New Moon. It gives the werewolves a bad name and makes them look like some deformed mutation of a rabid dog.
Seriously, read the whole thing. The staff of the Onion must be kicking themselves today.
My latest MSN Movies gallery does the only thing it can do this week, using the release of “Shutter Island” to explore some other famous cinematic snake pits. And yes, “The Snake Pit” is first on the list.
Step on in. And don’t worry about the door slamming shut behind you … they do that sort of thing all the time to mess with new visitors.
Don’t they?
It’s an interesting week at the megaplex — a Cannes hit, a TIFF triumph, a delayed Scorsese picture and a Belgian toy story, among others. Shall we plunge in?
“Defendor“: I’ve written at length about the appeal and the gravity of Peter Stebbings’ directorial debut, so what are you waiting for? Go see! Go see!
“Fish Tank“: Andrea Arnold’s exquisitely observed kitchen-sink drama charts the coming of age of a fifteen-year-old Essex teen who forms a dangerous bond with her mother’s new boyfriend. Katie Jarvis is amazing; Michael Fassbender is pretty damn great himself.
“The Most Dangerous Man in America: Daniel Ellsberg and the Pentagon Papers”: The most notorious whistleblower in American history — and possibly the most important — gets his due in this Oscar-nominated documentary, opening for a limited run at the Bloor. Susan found it competent but cold.
“Reel Injun”: Neil Diamond (no, the other one) examines the American cinema’s treatment of First Nations characters, and their ensuing stereotypes, in an engaging and insightful documentary. Andrew agrees with my assessment.
“Shutter Island“: Martin Scorsese tries to make a 1950s pulp thriller, and the result is a weird mixture of exquisite mood and banal storytelling. You can admire its accomplishments without ever caring about the characters or enjoying the story … but I don’t think that’s the point. Not sure why my review isn’t up yet, but I’ll post the link as soon as it is. UPDATE: There it is!
“A Town Called Panic“: Stephane Aubier and Vincent Patar’s antic animated comedy — produced in stop-motion, with scaled-up replicas of children’s toys — is a truly unique experience. It’s also sort of exhausting, which works against it even at 75 minutes. But if you ever wanted to see Jeanne Balibar play a horse, this is the only game in town.
“Until the Light Takes Us“: I know very little about the intense world of Norwegian Black Metal — basically, just what I saw in Sam Dunn’s “Global Metal” — and after watching Aaron Aites and Audrey Ewell’s tale of rivalry, delusion and murder among musicians, I feel like I know even less. Also, Norwegians are crazy. UPDATE: Review’s up now, for what it’s worth.
Every now and then, a movie comes along that just speaks to you. Sometimes it’s a serious drama that addresses a personal issue you didn’t even know you had, and sometimes it’s a genre piece that treats its subject in a way you’d been hoping someone would.
Last year at TIFF, that movie was “Defendor”, Peter Stebbings’ oddball meditation on superhero mythology and the cultural impact of heroism. If Alliance had got behind it and released it on the heels of its festival success — or even popped it out in December after it made Canada’s Top Ten — it might have had a shot to distinguish itself from “Kick-Ass“, another subversion of costumed-hero iconography that’s been stoking the fanboys since Comic-Con and is set to open in April.
But the moment passed, and now it’s being dumped onto a single screen at the AMC Yonge & Dundas, where it’ll be likely ignored. Don’t you make that mistake.
Anyway, my interviews with Stebbings and star Woody Harrelson are online at the NOW site. Check them out, and go see their movie if you can. It may not kick ass, exactly, but it’s awfully good.