A look ahead… the films of January 2011
Posted by Patrick Hodges
Sorry to all who frequent this site and have noticed that there have been very few additions in the last few weeks. It's been almost as long since we've posted any new trailers, so, just to catch up, I'm going to post every major film's trailer coming out in January 2011 (other months will follow).
January 7
Season of the Witch (Relativity Media) - Director: Dominic Sena; starring Nicolas Cage, Ron Perlman and Claire Foy. A 14th-century Crusader (Cage) returns to his homeland, which has been devastated by the Black Plague. To appease members of the church, he and his comrade (Perlman) look to transport an accused witch (Foy) to a remote abbey, where monks hope that a ritual will end the pestilence.
Opinion: It's January, it's Nicolas Cage, how seriously can you take it?
Faster
Posted by Patrick Hodges
One could make a case that Dwayne (formerly "The Rock") Johnson was one of the bigger action stars of the past decade. With films like The Rundown, The Scorpion King, Walking Tall and The Other Guys under his belt, it is certainly not a stretch to imagine Johnson in a balls-out action film such as Faster. The thing about Johnson is, however, that his biggest asset onscreen is his personality and charisma; this is what turns mostly mediocre films into films that are at least enjoyable. His one super-serious actioner, Doom, was a flop in just about every way, and Faster is Johnson's first foray into R-rated territory since then. Regrettably, it's a road he should have left alone.
For whatever reason, screenwriters Tony and Joe Gayton (whose previous writing credits include duds such as Murder By Numbers and Bulletproof) decided to give most of the characters in Faster descriptions rather than names. Perhaps this was to give the film an air of mystery or anonymity; but what it actually did was make the players less characters and more like caricatures, mere faces with no more soul or depth than a cardboard cutout.
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Pt 1 Review: The Magic is Gone
Posted by Eoin O'Faolain
As the story of Harry Potter nears its end, you’d expect the films to get better. The climax is nearing, the subject matter is darker, and so the ante is upped in terms of visuals, performance, etc. Only, the series is getting slightly worse, and the first part of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows is probably the most disappointing yet. Being half of a book it’s a veritable non-starter of a movie, complete with forced mini-resolution, and borrowing a lot from a better franchise.
In this story Harry finds himself as an outlaw on the run. The Ministry of Magic has been taken over by the evil Lord Voldemort and his cohorts who are forming a new dictatorship: one in which us regular humans will be considered lesser creatures, and crushed into submission. But Voldemort must destroy Potter first. So our hero flees with his allies, most importantly Ron and Hermione whose relationship is threatened by Harry’s bond with the spritely lass. Feeling alone, Harry must work to find one of the “Horcruxes” that make Voldemort’s soul invincible, and destroy it. But he doesn’t know how and must revisit his tragic past in order to change the future.
In a way, the latest Harry Potter film is no different from the others, but therein lies a major problem. The whole movie franchise suffers from Poor Adaptation Syndrome. Writers fail to acknowledge the vast difference between plots and characters in a novel and in a movie, and so attempt to squeeze in as many elements of a 400 page book into a 120 minute film. So what we see are characters appearing and disappearing faster than corpses dropping in a Rob Zombie flick. These characters often have one important line or piece of information, and then disappear. In this film, for example, we see Brendan Gleeson as Mad-Eye Moody and Domhnall Gleeson (Brendan’s actual son) as Bill Weasley given about 3-4 minutes of screen time and then they completely disappear, having zero narrative function. In the novels they’re afforded more time but in a film it’s so brief it’s pointless from a narrative perspective. This was the exact same problem that made The Golden Compass such a bad film of a great book, and we will never see the sequels made. This latest Potter film goes a step further and forces a sort of climax by reintroducing a character from one of the earlier Potter films and then perish as if he’s some sort of Obi Wan figure. But not only does this pale in comparison to the death of Dumbledore in the previous film, but it’s hard to care about a character that appeared several years ago and doesn’t do much here. It’s like making a 2-hour movie and trying to make us feel for someone who has 2 minutes presence in the entire film. A more ambitious writing team would tear apart the books and restructure it drastically to work as a film. Indeed, the series has had so much padding and so many diversions that it would probably work better as a trilogy.
Unstoppable
Posted by Patrick Hodges
Action movies often take on many forms. Some are nothing more than visual spectacles that feature explosions galore and CGI out the wazoo, with little or no emphasis on developing the characters involved (cough Transformers cough cough); others take the time to actually explore the back stories of the characters in between gun-battles (the original Die Hard comes to mind immediately). It's an especially difficult task to have character development in a film that is blatantly there for us to get an adrenaline rush, mainly because movies like that tend to take place over very short periods of time, sometimes less than a day, so when an action film is able to find that equilibrium between story and character, it's a good thing. Unstoppable may not make the balance 50/50, but it comes fairly close.
Megamind
Posted by Patrick Hodges
Ever since Kung Fu Panda, DreamWorks has shown that even if they are not able to overtake Pixar as the best animated outfit in town, they can at least keep stride. With hits like Panda, Monsters vs. Aliens and this past spring's exemplary How to Train Your Dragon, they finally seem to have realized that the key to making great animated stories is not to pepper them with pop-culture references that will become stale within a year, but to make stories that can be retold countless times and for future generations.
It's to DreamWorks' credit that they were able to take Jack Black, a comedian I really have no taste for, and create a character for him (in Kung Fu Panda) that held his most annoying mannerisms, for the most part, in check. I had similar hopes that Megamind, which stars the voice of Will Ferrell (a comedian I truly can't stand), could do the same thing. And they ALMOST did.
Tree of Life poster and synopsis
Posted by Matthew Starr
As I am desperate for any and all news Terrence Malick I was surprised to find out that the folks at Collider actually got some information in regards to Tree of Life over at the American Film Market going on right now on the west coast. Apparently they found this poster and synopsis,
"From the Desk of Terrence Malick….
We trace the evolution of an eleven-year-old boy in the Midwest, JACK, one of three brothers. At first all seems marvelous to the child. He sees as his mother does with the eyes of his soul. She represents the way of love and mercy, where the father tries to teach his son the world’s way of putting oneself first. Each parent contends for his allegiance, and Jack must reconcile their claims. The picture darkens as he has his first glimpses of sickness, suffering and death. The world, once a thing of glory, becomes a labyrinth.
From this story is that of adult Jack, a lost soul in a modern world, seeking to discover amid the changing scenes of time that which does not change: the eternal scheme of which we are a part. When he sees all that has gone into our world’s preparation, each thing appears a miracle—precious, incomparable. Jack, with his new understanding, is able to forgive his father and take his first steps on the path of life.
The story ends in hope, acknowledging the beauty and joy in all things, in the everyday and above all in the family—our first school—the only place that most of us learn the truth about the world and ourselves, or discover life’s single most important lesson, of unselfish love."
Ok a bit of a spaced out poster and description of the film but hey this is what Malick does best and better than anyone. He is a philosophical filmmaker who writes poetry via the moving image. His films are masterful and timeless and sub par poster or not I have no doubts Tree of Life won't deliver.
Actresses Round Table
Posted by Matthew Starr
I tend to enjoy round table discussions more so than I do straight up Q and A's after films. Actors and actresses seem a little more comfortable and willing to answer personal questions when they are among one another. There are also of course more interesting questions being asked during these get togethers. To kick off the season the Hollywood Reporter gathered Natalie Portman, Helena Bonham Carter, Annette Bening, Nicole Kidman, Hilary Swank and Amy Adams. I have to say my admiration for Hilary has skyrocketed this season between her performance in Conviction and her attitude towards film that is displayed during this discussion. It's worth a look.
Trailers: The Way Back and The Illusionist
Posted by Matthew Starr
Peter Weir's The Way Back has screened at Telluride and a few times after but only in LA. I read on Hollywood Elsewhere that it will not be screened in New York until very late this year if not 2011. Kind of an odd strategy for a film that is expected to to be in play for various awards but early word has been good, if not great.
Monsters
Posted by Patrick Hodges
Review submitted by David Tredler
What you think of a film sometimes (only partly of course) depends on the setting, on "how" you see it. I saw Monsters in early September, at a film festival, without any previously-seen images in my head beyond a couple of posters I saw on the Internet. I didn't exactly know what it was about, except that there were going to be aliens involved, and I certainly did not know what they would look like. I didn't know, going in, what to expect, but from what I had heard, I thought it would be a cheap but gripping feature.
Due Date – The Hangover’s Leftovers
Posted by Eoin O'Faolain
The unpredicted success of The Hangover could only mean one thing: clones. Unfortunately, the law of diminishing returns suggests that upcoming clones, including The Hangover 2 (due out next year), won’t be as funny. And The Hangover wasn’t even that good in the first place. Arriving into our cinema screens this week is the first clone, Due Date. Directed by The Hangover’s Todd Phillips, it really does feel like an exhausted comedy.
The story is a typical road journey. An odd couple - the uptight Peter Highman (Robert Downey Jr) trying to get home for the birth of his first child, and the downright bizarre effeminate wannabe actor Ethan Tremblay (Zach Galifianakis) - are placed together in an awkward situation after losing their flight to LA, and end up having to share a rental car across an entire continent, driving each other mad in the process.
We’ve seen this kind of story before, most notably in John Hughes’s likeable Planes, Trains, and Automobiles, in which Steve Martin is infuriated by the well-meaning but idiotic John Candy. But what differentiates Hughes’s film from Due Date is how relatable the characters are. Martin is uptight but relatively normal: we could all react in the way he does. Candy is a dimwit but never dangerously so. In Due Date we get a very different situation. Galifianakis, pretty much reprising his role as Alan in The Hangover, ranges for delusional to childish to mentally-disabled. In fact, like Alan, he’s more of a collection of quirks from society’s extremes as opposed to a full-bodied character. But the real problem lies in Peter. Downey relies far too much on his trademark smarm, and rather than represent the straight part of who we all are, we instead get possibly the most unlikable character of the year. In one scene he punches a child in the stomach. In another he spits in a dog’s face. He’s made so obnoxious that we ultimately couldn’t care less if he manages to witness his child’s birth or not. And neither scene is particularly funny in light of Peter’s nasty streak.