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Nowhere Boy

Sam Taylor-Wood‘s feature directorial debut Nowhere Boy gives us a glimpse of John Lennon at a critical time in his life. Critical with regards to his later career (we see him learning to play the guitar, starting his first band and meeting Paul McCartney) but mostly because of the developments in his personal life. At the start of the movie John is being raised by his aunt Mimi and uncle George. After his uncle – who he was very close to, as we see in one of the first scenes of the movie – passes away, John becomes curious about his mother and finds out she lives only a couple of blocks away. They are reacquainted and John starts spending time with her and her new family. His mother turns out to be a youthful spirit and the two of them grow very close very quickly. At the same time John rebels against his aunt, the complete opposite of her sister: stable, responsible and unable to show any emotion.

The film is a beautifully balanced piece of storytelling, based on the memoir of Lennon’s half-sister Julia. The script by Matt Greenhalgh (who also wrote the screenplay for Control) takes us through events at a brisk pace but slows down at the right moments. For example during the first meeting between John and Paul. This scene is breathtaking to watch because we as an audience know what will come of this union. There is no need for the director to give this any additional emphasis, which Taylor-Wood thankfully realizes.

The story has considerable emotional depth without becoming sentimental or exploitative, which apart from the script is due mostly to the excellent cast. I can’t vouch for the historical accuracy of the portrayals: apparently Aaron Johnson doesn’t have the right Lennon accent and Thomas Brodie Sangster as Paul McCartney looks a bit too baby-faced for me. But that’s irrelevant, because their performances – complemented by excellent work by Kristin Scott Thomas and Anne-Marie Duff as aunt and mother – make us care about these characters and make us forget about the images and sounds we normally associate with their names. The way Aaron Johnson and Anne-Marie Duff subtly portray the tension that develops between mother and prodigal son is one of the highlights of the film, intensified by Seamus McGarvey‘s excellent camerawork.

Don’t expect any Beatles songs here (the movie ends at the start of their Hamburg period) or other classics of the time for that matter (which may have to do with the clearing of rights). But there is enough period music to adequately set the scene and a few big musical numbers form pivotal moments in the story.

Nowhere Boy will not provide you with many new insights into John Lennon’s psychology. Because rather than a biopic, Nowhere Boy is a coming of age drama. The fact that it happens to involve one of the musical geniuses of our time is an added bonus.

And they’re off

The Toronto International Film Festival draws to a close this weekend: the deals have been made, the reviews have been filed. And now speculation can start on who the frontrunners are in this year’s Oscar race (remember, the statues aren’t handed out until February 27).

The biggest buzz didn’t come from any of the festivals but from early screenings of The Social Network, David Fincher’s film about how some say Facebook was founded. It will open the New York Film Festival this coming week before being released nationwide. Early online reviews are raving (it was screened to bloggers before the traditional critics) and the Oscar talk ranges from Best Picture (for which it is sure to be a major contender) to Best Supporting Actor for Justin Timberlake (less likely, but an intriguing possibility). The only bump in the road ahead could be that computer-challenged Academy members can’t relate to this portrayal of millenials, even though the story told seems to be a timeless one.

James Franco in 127 Hours

Two of the films that made the biggest impression in Venice and Toronto also have their problems when it comes to the Oscars. 127 Hours is Danny Boyle’s follow-up to Slumdog Millionaire (which won 8 Academy Awards) and has been very favorably received in Toronto. It tells the true story of mountain climber Aron Ralston (played by James Franco) who gets trapped in an isolated canyon after a boulder falls on his arm. Franco has to carry this movie (think Tom Hanks in Cast Away) and does so by delivering a “knock-out performance” (JoBlo). But here’s the snag: the film contains a gruesome scene where Ralston takes the ultimate measure to escape (not difficult to guess which one) which may scare off some Academy members (medics were apparently required at one of the screenings). The other Oscar contender with a complication is Black Swan: Natalie Portman seems a shoo-in for a Best Actress nomination, but the film has some kinkier aspects that may not appeal to all Academy members.

Nicole Kidman and Aaron Eckhart in Rabbit Hole

Luckily, there were also some more traditional films making waves in Toronto: The King’s Speech and Rabbit Hole stand out. I reported on the former last week. Deadline now calls The King’s Speech “a real crowd pleaser” that “should play right into Academy’s lap”. Rabbit Hole has been noted mostly for Nicole Kidman’s performance. She plays a mother dealing with the accidental death of her 4-year-old son (Aaron Eckhart plays the husband, also garnering praise). And if you think there is a movie like this one every awards season, read this Cinematical review.

A bit more towards the dark horse end of the spectrum, we have films like Biutiful, Hereafter, The Town and of course Somewhere. Even though the latter won the Golden Lion in Venice, it hasn’t been seen by enough people to create a real buzz (it skipped Toronto). Ben Affleck’s The Town tops the box-office this weekend and got good reviews, but may be a bit too violent. The talk in Toronto surrounding Hereafter – Clint Eastwood’s movie starring Matt Damon as a psychic – has not been particularly positive, but the Academy will find it difficult to overlook Clint. And Biutiful has Javier Bardem going for it, who already won the (tied) award for Best Actor in Cannes. The subject matter of the film – a man involved in illegal business learns that he might be dying of cancer – may be a bit too dark to make it a real contender for anything other than Best Actor.

Finally, Deadline reports that a deal was also closed in Toronto for Robert Redford’s The Conspirator, about the aftermath of the Lincoln assassination. The film will be saved for next year’s Oscar race with a release in the Spring of 2011. Apparently this year’s race is already getting too crowded.

Machete

Danny Trejo is Machete, a quiet Mexican day laborer with a tragic past. This past is laid out for us in the movie’s prologue which involves numerous severed heads and a seductive naked woman producing a phone from the only place she could possibly have hidden it. Just to make sure we understand that we’re watching an exaggeration of exploitation movie clichés, co-directors Robert Rodriguez and Ethan Maniquis have added some digital scratches to the footage. The scratches go away after the opening credits, but the jerky 70s style editing (by Robert and his sister Rebecca Rodriguez), overly pronounced musical accents (by John Debney) and of course the gratuitous violence and nudity remain.

Rodriguez’s movie has a plot that could fuel a decent thriller but is used here as an excuse to introduce a colorful cast of characters and move them from one set piece to the next. An attempt to summarize: in present-day Texas, Machete is enlisted as a patsy by Booth (Jeff Fahey), the aid of senator McLaughlin (Robert De Niro). McLaughlin has a particularly ruthless position on illegal immigration, to the point of going on immigrant hunting trips together with border vigilante Von (an entirely convincing and almost unrecognizable Don Johnson). Booth has a little side business of his own, which involves Mexican drug lord and Machete nemesis Torrez (Steven Seagal). Michelle Rodriguez (the one Rodriguez working on this film who is not related to Robert) and Jessica Alba play the forces for good in this movie, who also happen to be every man’s fantasy, what with the gun-wielding, hard liquor drinking, low-cut jeans wearing and prolonged shower pondering. Oh, and lets not forget Lindsay Lohan and her body-double playing April – Booth’s daughter – and Cheech Martin as the padre to whom Booth confesses his impure thoughts about her.

The violence in this film is extreme, but very obviously played for comedic effect. The highlight being Machete who rappels down a building using his opponent’s colon. However, there is one scene that breaks the mood and attempts to go for a more noir accent, when assassins enter a church in slow-motion with Ave Maria playing in the background. The scene is a miscue and the violence in it gets unpleasant, silencing even the group of guys sitting behind me who had until then greeted every decapitation with cheers.

Danny Trejo as Machete is of course the main attraction of this movie and he “certainly has an imposing physicality and formidable presence” (Frank Scheck), as long as he moves and speaks as little as possible. Luckily, that is the case for the bigger part of his screen time. The ladies’ man aspect of his character is unconvincing and especially his romantic involvement with Sartana (Jessica Alba) feels unnecessary. He is given dialogue by the Rodriguez cousins (Álvaro Rodriguez co-wrote the script) that feels like a collection of one-liners, containing at least one instant classic: Machete don’t text!

In the end, a review of the different elements and finer nuances of this kind of movie is rather pointless. You either sit back and surrender to Rodriguez’s vision, or you resist and focus on what’s wrong with this film. It took me a while to accomplish the former but I walked out of the movie theater with a smile on my face.

Festival news

The fall festivals are underway, premiering some highly anticipated films and warming us up for awards season. The Venice Film Festival came to a close yesterday with its awards ceremony. The jury – chaired by Quentin Tarantino – awarded the Golden Lion for best film to Somewhere by Sofia Coppola (this just in: was it a case of favouritism?)

Stephen Dorff in Somewhere

Somewhere is about Johnny Marco (played by Stephen Dorff), an actor staying indefinitely at the Chateau Marmont hotel in Beverly Hills, filling his nights with anonymous sexual encounters and sleeping through the press junkets he is supposed to attend during the day. His 11-year-old daughter Cleo (Elle Fanning) shows up, finds a place in the rhythms of his daily life and joins him on an overseas trip for the Italian premiere of his film. Naturally, the two of them bond. But this being Sofia Coppola, don’t expect any big moments of redemption. This is an understated film very much in the vein of Lost in Translation, although most critics agree that it doesn’t quite reach that level (Variety really likes the film, while British reviews were a bit more restrained).

The opening film in Venice was Darren Aronofsky’s Black Swan. Most of the talk afterwards centered on Natalie Portman’s performance, deemed Oscar-worthy by some (the buzz surrounding Portman had as an interesting side-effect that she is now being considered for Alfonso Cuaron’s Gravity, suddenly in possession of star power comparable to that of Angelina Jolie). No awards for Aronofsky or Portman though. But there was the Marcello Mastroianni Award (for best young actor or actress) for Mila Kunis, who plays Portman’s rival.

The second big festival this week (still underway) is the Toronto International Film Festival. Although it doesn’t have any golden statues to hand out (there is a people’s choice award, presented next weekend) it is much more influential than Venice, especially when it comes to the North American market and to the Oscar buzz. It’s still too early to name Toronto’s favourites, but there are at least two films that have had a very favourable reception. Ben Affleck’s The Town got good reviews as a solid – albeit conventional – crime drama, praised for the way it localizes the action in Boston. The King’s Speech – the true story of King George the Sixth (Colin Firth) who suffered from a debilitating stammer – had people talking Oscars and was inventively summarized by JoBlo as a bromance disguised as a period drama.

No doubt more from Toronto next week, but to close off today’s news: a few casting notes. Deadline reports that Liam Neeson has joined the cast of Battleship (based on the board game, remember) which may mean we have to start taking this film seriously. And Noomi Rapace‘s tour of Hollywood has led to her being cast in Sherlock Holmes 2, opposite Robert Downey, Jr (The Hollywood Reporter has the exclusive). There is also a rumor of her appearing in a film called Hansel and Gretel: Witch Hunters, but that remains to be confirmed.

Going the Distance

In Nanette Burstein‘s Going the Distance, Justin Long and Drew Barrymore play a couple stuck in a long-distance relationship. Erin (Barrymore) and Garrett (Long) are in New York at the start of the film, where he has a low-level job at a record label and she works as an intern at a newspaper. They meet in a bar, immediately hit it off, go back to his place for “the talk” about their favorite movies and end up in bed. At which point the camera chastely zooms out the window, in bizarre contrast to the raunchiness that sets this movie’s dialogue apart from others in the genre (according to Kirk Honeycutt “a pathetic attempt by a ‘chick flick’ to reach out to a younger and more male demographic”).

The first half hour of this film feels quite fresh (except for the obligatory ‘young love in New York’ montage) and does a good job of making the audience care about the protagonists’ budding romance. Another nice touch is that this first act concludes with the airport scene that we would normally expect at the very end of the story. The film “acknowledges this convention and slyly subverts it” (A.O. Scott). Because yes, Erin has to return to San Francisco to finish grad school. And as they are apart, Erin and Garrett start to realize they are in love and want to be together. But the economy being what it is, they face a struggle in combining their professional lives with their love life. Here, the film aims for “surface topicality” (Owen Gleiberman) but ends up being traditional: a suggestion of blogging as a career choice instead of writing for a newspaper is implicitly rejected as ludicrous.

Although the set-up is good, the movie doesn’t live up to its potential. There are some smart, genuine and sometimes hilarious scenes here. But the zest of these scenes clashes with the contrived way in which screenwriter Geoff LaTulippe lets the story unfold. It sometimes feels more like “a compilation […] than an involving romantic comedy” (Claudia Puig). No real attempt is made to make the romantic rivals interesting or threatening and when the big crisis arrives it doesn’t convince or stir any emotions. After that, the movie just fizzles out.

The performances of the leads don’t help either. Although Justin Long can display his “pleasantly offhand and quick wit” (Claudia Puig), his acting is too one-dimensional for some of the emotional depth that this film seems to be aiming for. And Drew Barrymore, while shining in some of the traditional rom-com segments (such as the “crucial, early ‘I love you’ moment” [Michael Phillips]) can’t really sell her character convincingly enough. When Erin laughs too hard at Garrett’s jokes during their first date it seems like a metaphor for Barrymore’s acting in this movie.

The best part of Going the Distance is the support cast, which is excellent all around. From Christina Applegate as Erin’s sister to Charlie Day and Jason Sudeikis as Garret’s best friends. Even Matt Servito in a small role as Erin’s boss at the paper gives a very enjoyable performance. This is a pleasant movie, but in the end it’s too formulaic to stand out from the crowd.

Harry Brown

Watching Michael Caine’s performance in Daniel Barber‘s Harry Brown – supported by an excellent Emily Mortimer – one would almost overlook the film’s major shortcomings. I’ll get to those later.

Caine plays the title character, a seemingly gentle pensioner living alone in a particularly miserable part of London. His apartment is in what would be called a project in American terms (a “council estate” in the film) which is being run by youths high on drugs and with a low threshold for violence (as is made clear in an opening sequence that is stylistically at odds with the rest of the movie). His wife is in the hospital and the highlight of his day is having a pint and playing a game of chess with his friend Leonard (David Bradley). When Detective Alice Frampton (Mortimer) pays a visit to his apartment to inform him that his friend has been killed by the local thugs, what is left of Harry Brown’s world crumbles. Stumbling home from the pub later that day, he is reacquainted with his combat skills (he served as a marine in Northern Ireland) when one of the local criminals tries to rob him. This incident triggers him to take on the role of neighbourhood vigilante to avenge his friend’s murder.

Production designer Kave Quinn sets a visual style for this movie that makes it abundantly clear that there is no hope. Not for the ones being terrorized, not for good police like Alice Frampton and not even for the hooligans themselves. The film makes no attempt to give us an insight into the causes of this situation. And there lies its major shortcoming. By not being interested in the backgrounds it simply uses this particular social setting as a backdrop for what director Daniel Barber has called an “urban western”. But he cannot get away with it that easily. This environment – although perhaps slightly exaggerated in the film – is very recognizable for many viewers. They may not exactly live in it, they have at least heard of it. So the moral issues of what transpires here need to be addressed. They are not. As Michael Philips puts it: “The film exists for one reason only: to see bloody justice done so that a quiet, good man can walk tall and prevail.”

The film also lacks any type of character exploration, which leaves Caine’s and Mortimer’s strong performances as ultimately superficial. A shame, because Mortimer’s Alice Frampton exudes just the right combination of toughness and compassion and her confrontations with thug boss Noel – played by London hip-hop artist Ben Drew – are some of the strongest scenes in the film. And it goes without saying that Caine “makes not a single interpretive misstep” (Michael Philips). Exploring the background of Alice Frampton’s demeanor or her relationship with Harry Brown as she begins to suspect what he’s up to would have been welcome.

Reviewers have complained that Harry Brown’s transition from peaceful pensioner to ruthless vigilante is “absurdly abrupt” (Kirk Honeycutt) and “doesn’t work dramatically” (Manohla Dargis). Personally, I felt it was refreshing that Barber didn’t feel the need for a hyperbolic scene involving women and children to set in motion the revenge plot or a montage in which we see the protagonist driven to insanity and finally donning a home-made costume. And as such, Caine’s character doesn’t have that much in common with well-known movie vigilantes such as Clint Eastwood’s Dirty Harry or Charles Bronson’s Paul Kersey. Except perhaps at that one moment where his opponent’s gun misfires and, before taking care of him, Harry Brown lets him know: “You failed to maintain your weapon, son.”

The 3D debate

No interesting screenings this week, so you’ll get some mid-week movie news today and a DVD review this weekend.

The king of the third dimension, James Cameron, let his light shine this week on Piranha and its use of 3D. In an interview with Vanity Fair, he said it “is exactly an example of what we should not be doing in 3-D, because it just cheapens the medium”. He was not more  specific, but we can safely assume he was talking about the various body parts being thrown at the audience in this one. His comments of course didn’t go unnoticed in the blogosphere and provoked an immediate response from one of Piranha’s producers, Mark Canton (Deadline has his full rebuttal). Mark really rips into Cameron. Unnecessary in my opinion, but his main point is a valid one: go watch this film with an audience, the way it is intended.

Piranha is a genre film, meant to get a visceral response from its viewers. In order to do this it goes completely over the top in serving up sex , blood and of course some nifty 3D tricks. Is it in good taste? No. Does it cheapen the medium? Of course not. It just doesn’t take it as seriously as Cameron does.

Mr. Avatar also makes some comments about natively authored 3D movies versus conversions. There have been some very bad examples of the latter. The 3D remake of Clash of the Titans is the one that immediately springs to mind and which has made people wary of upcoming post-conversions such as Thor. Cameron, being his usual haughty self, claims he will set the gold standard when converting Titanic to 3D. Ah yes, that’s the one we’ve all had our hearts set on.

A surprising voice in the 3D debate this week was that of Werner Herzog. The Toronto Film Festival that starts next week sees the premiere of Herzog’s 3D documentary Cave of Forgotten Dreams, about prehistoric drawings in the Chauvet caves of southern France. The Playlist spoke to Herzog who positions 3D as a wonderful “spectacle” but hopes never to see “something like a romantic comedy in 3D”. Wise words. And as a visual spectacle, both Avatar and Piranha have their place.

Artistic debates such as the one between Cameron, Canton and Herzog are interesting, but ultimately irrelevant in Hollywood. Because guess what? 3D saved the summer box office. USA Today reports that attendance this summer was actually at a five-year low, but the extra few dollars for a pair of 3D glasses made it a record summer in terms of total revenue.

In closing, a bit of news about movies I reported on earlier. Alfonso Cuaron’s Gravity (Cast Away in space… sorry, Alfonso) is in trouble because Angelina Jolie just doesn’t want to do it and Warner Bros is afraid a lesser lead makes the CGI investment needed for this one too big of a risk (/Film has the complete story). Then there’s Black Swan, which premiered at the Venice Film Festival to rave reviews. Natalie Portman’s performance is already being seen as worthy of an Oscar. And there was an interesting piece in The New York Times about the Arthur remake starring Russel Brand, focusing on the improvisational nature of the production. Earlier, costume-related news had me worried but the NYT set report has eased my mind somewhat about the project.

Slow news week

As usual, the end of August offers very little in terms of movie news. Here’s what I was able to scrape together.

All the studio spin in the world can’t hide the fact that Little Fockers is in trouble. Number three in the Meet the Parents franchise (yes, they’re calling it a franchise now) has wrapped production and is slated for a Christmas release. The trailer that was revealed a few weeks ago did not make a very favorable impression, though. You be the judge.

Then came the news that pickups were needed. Just some tweaks that would make corrections in post-production possible. Move along, people. Nothing to see here. But it became clear that there was something fishy going on when Vulture began reporting on rumours that Dustin Hoffman would be flown in to reprise his role of Bernie Focker. He was not in the movie as it was originally shot because Universal couldn’t reach a deal with him. This week it was indeed confirmed by Deadline that Hoffman would be coming to the rescue with four scenes that will be shot in September along with a bunch of other re-shoots involving the entire cast. Universal will pay him the full amount he would have received if he’d signed up for the movie in the first place. As /Film puts it: a seriously expensive fix. After seeing the trailer (and the previous part in the series), I had already given up on this project. The latest news just confirms that they’re really making a mess of this one.

Angelina Jolie during her visit to Sarajevo

Hardly a day can go by without Angelina Jolie being connected to a new project (such as the one where she was going to play Marilyn Monroe). Most of those stories disappear within a few days (as did the Marilyn Monroe rumour) but this week saw some real news involving La Jolie. While visiting Sarajevo as a goodwill ambassador for the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) Jolie announced she will be starting work this fall on a love story set during the 1992-95 Bosnian War. It was at first assumed she would be starring in the film and perhaps producing it. However, in the course of this week it became clear that she would in fact be making her directorial debut (producer Graham King’s GK Films had the confirmation) working from her own script. It will be a modest film (with a $15 million dollar budget) and Jolie will be working mostly with local actors. Serbian actor Rade Serbedzija (who will be in the film) offers some details in an interview with Blic.

And finally there is Mission: Impossible. Number 4 in the series is in the works and it appears there will be some major changes this time around. It was announced this week that Tom Cruise will be joined by Jeremy Renner (The Hurt Locker). The idea behind this move seems to be that Cruise will slowly fade into the background (Knight & Day‘s performance having shown that his action hero days are over) and Renner (also set to star in The Avengers) will start carrying the series from now on. Also this week, Variety reported that part four may not even be called Mission: Impossible. Yes, you guessed it. Paramount is aiming for a good old-fashioned reboot.

Vampires Suck

I was a big fan of the Naked Gun movies back in the day. As I was fighting the urge to get up and leave during Jason Friedberg and Aaron Seltzer‘s Vampires Suck, I began to doubt myself. Was Leslie Nielsen really as funny as I remember him? Or did I just happen to be the right age to appreciate that kind of humor? I was seeing a similar scattershot approach here that I remembered from the Naked Gun series, with a lot of physical humor and literalizations. It just wasn’t funny. But a quick search on YouTube reassured me. Perhaps the hit/miss ratio of the jokes has lowered a bit for me personally, but Leslie Nielsen was the epitome of sophistication compared to what Friedberg and Seltzer dare put in front of us. Zucker, Zucker & Abrahams’ work has stood the test of time surprisingly well. This movie thankfully will not.

I’m not going to waste your time with a description of the plot of Vampires Suck. It is illustrative of the laziness of the makers that they didn’t bother to go beyond a “scene-by-scene retread of the first two movies in the [Twilight] franchise” (Frank Scheck). It’s this laziness that pervades all aspects of this film: from the “gags that barely even try for humor” (Adam Markovitz) to the current pop culture references that deliberately shorten the movie’s lifespan (because… please tell me that the Kardashians and Jersey Shore will have been forgotten in a few years’ time). Yes, a few of the more physical jokes do get a laugh. But there are just as many that make you cringe, especially the ones involving Becca’s dad (Becca, played by Jenn Proske, being the stand-in for Bella). Yet considering the success of their earlier efforts, the director-screenwriters know exactly what they’re aiming for, “clearly aware of their target audiences’ lack of sophistication” (Frank Scheck).

The Twilight saga was not really in need of a sendup. Jeannette Catsoulis notes how it “has always been winkingly aware of its own angsty excesses”. In that sense, the source material has much more sophistication than this dreadful attempt at parody.