Americana oversimplified

Tully (2000) must have been on my Netflix que for years and years before finally making its way to the number one spot and arriving at my door. I don't remember why I put it on my que nor when I put it there, but its long journey finally came to an end after sitting on my coffee table for nearly a month. And lets just say it wasn't worth the journey.

Tully surrounds Tully Coates Jr. a good looking farmers son from rural nowhere trying to make sense of his families past without sacrificing his future. Often times I will point out movies that have achieved a level of greatness in filmmaking, whether it be in writing, acting, style, tension, pace and point them out as a means to learn from them. Sometimes I think one can learn even more from a poorly executed film, and Tully has film-school 101 mistakes in spades.

I don't want to harp on the movies flaws too much because I do understand that it was a low budget feature. And do I ever understand the difficulties of making a low budget film, but what I can't understand is the overwhelming support and adulation for this film from both the public (imdb score) and certain critics I respect (Roger Ebert). So for the sake of argument lets get into where this thing falls short.

At first Tullys biggest problem is being too good looking and not knowing what girl to sleep with in the town. Then we find out that his fathers farm owes 300,000 dollars and his father doesn't seem to know why. Then comes the exposition and the staring. Literally the whole film goes a little something like this, character gets upset about the past, sits on the hood or sometimes roof of his car looks out onto the picturesque landscape and tells his or her feelings to whoever is there with them. Then cuts to them staring and thinking. About what we don't know. Anything relatively interesting that may of happened, happened in the past and is only shared to us through conversation. I wanted to see those scenes! The scenes they described, not them sitting on the hood of their vehicles describing them poorly. If you are writing a screenplay you don't need to have the characters say stuff like "what is wrong" every ten minutes when we the audience already know what is wrong, and if your going to have a film where the past comes back to haunt you, use flashbacks, one can only take so many scenes of characters, being poorly acted, talking about things we are not seeing and then how it makes them feel. And if you are going to have long shots of people staring out into space, at least try and communicate a bit what they are thinking. It is melodrama at its worst.

And to top all that off, the score for this film felt like it could have been done by 12 year old who just sat at piano and randomly made sounds. The score tried to be a mask and tell us what to feel but it couldn't even do that correctly.

Why Tully had any success at all is beyond me. Maybe because it is so uniquely American and sad that people felt like they had to like it. I wouldn't even recommend skipping this film, I almost want people to watch it to learn what not to do if they find themselves writing a script.

*1/2

Eisenberg in a theme park again

After Adventureland I thought I could safely put Jessie Eisenberg's carni character James Brennan safely in my memory bank somewhere between nostalgia and young adult angst, and there he would stay safely tucked in a warm retrospective blanket. Then, not even a year later, comes along Zombieland (2009) where Eisenberg is back in a theme park, this time he is named Columbus and now instead of learning about life, love and friendship he is being chased by horrific zombies trying to rip his larynx from his throat.

So I have adjusted enough to try and review Zombieland on its own merits. And what I have come up with is that this film is a fun, ultra-stylized, kinetic piece that ultimately feels hollow. Right from the get go director Ruben Fleischer pulls no punches when it comes to declaring exactly what your expectations should be. It starts out with some ultra-realistic gore, and then transitions to a sequence where Columbus is explaining to the audience the rules of surviving zombies. It is like Fleischer, right out of the gate says "have fun with this movie, if you don't you are missing the point, idiot". Maybe he wasn't as hostile about it, but I need to make my points too.

And I did had a lot of fun with the movie. Every self referential, winking moment made me either laugh or smile. Zombieland is a series of great "look how fun we are making post-apocalyptic zombie ridden society sequences", especially (SPOILER ALERT) the great Bill Murray cameo.

Eisenberg is good hear, but we have seen him play this virgin ridden character before. I hope he doesn't fall into the Michael Cera trap where he gets type cast, because he is way to talented for that. Woody Harrelson has never been more entertaining as a man who has found his true calling in killing zombies. And what really translates is it seems like everyone involved was having just as much fun making it as I was watching it.

Where Zombieland fell short for me and where a movie like Shawn of the Dead ultimately works is with the balance between the characterization and the reality of the world they are in. I felt with Zombieland they had the opportunity to actually incorporate a plot and form some real relationships between the characters, but instead any plot or relationship was just their to connect the clever zombie related incidents.

It is certainly not a waste of time to watch Zombieland because while you are watching it you will be entertained, but if you are like me will long for something more.

***

Polanski escapes to the Cape

A good thriller is very hard to come by. What passes for a thriller now a days seems to be a horror film with a poor plot line where the character just needs to survive. So it is good to see a master director like Roman Polanski try his hand at the genre with The Ghost Writer (2010). Polanski takes a step back and shows filmmakers how to patiently unravel a thriller, even one who's script may not be as good as the filmmaking on display.

I knew this film was going to be good by how it started. It starts on a ferry, the kind you need to drive your vehicle on to get to an island, the island happen to be Martha's Vineyard. The cars are all exiting the ferry, except one. Where is the driver? Well, turns out he is dead, washed up on shore. Now that is how you start a thriller. They could have easily just shown the guy being killed, and it would have been less mysterious, less dramatic.

Following this opening we are introduced to the predecessor of the dead guy, the next Ghost Writer for the former Prime Minister of Britain. This Ghost Writer is played by Ewen McGregor, we never learn his name, in so many words he is a ghost. McGregor is perfectly adequate here as the man with no past and the man we as the audience use to unravel this mystery.

So much of this movie is spent with Polanski channeling Hitchcock. It is more of an exercise in style than in trying to be that plot driven movie, but it works in both aspects. Not as much as say Polanski's Chinatown, which deals with similar themes of political corruption, but I can make the argument than no other movie in the history of cinema works as well as Chinatown.

So far The Ghost Writer is the best movie of the year and I fully expect it to be on my top ten of 2010. It features interesting parallels to Polanski's real life drama, as well as parallels to Tony Blairs life all wrapped in a conspiracy murder mystery. Not to mention another excellent cameo from the great Tom Wilkinson.

****

Davis Discovered

As many movie as I have seen, there are still directors, actors and writers that despite their fame have for some reason or another escaped my gaze. I can now cross Bette Davis off that list of famous starlets that have done so much for the industry yet I have not seen any of their work. Davis was nominated for 11 oscars in her career, winning two, and perhaps should have won for her work in The Little Foxes (1941).

Directed by William Wyler (who in his own right is historically successful and someone else I need to watch more films of) this film is adapted from Lillian Hellman's play and Hellman also penned the screenplay. What I always notice about plays that are successfully transformed into films is how perfect the structure is without being heavy handed. The Little Foxes surrounds a wealthy southern family and the balance between good and evil, greed and morality amongst the family members. Every line in this movies is their for a reason, and everyone represents some theme that later plays into the plot. To do this well is to be a master writer and Hellman seems to me to be a master.

Davis plays the matriarch of the family, her husband is sick and dieing, her brothers need her husbands money for a business venture. Now in the 40's one would think they would play it safe and have their star play the motherly role as a nurturer, but no, Davis brilliantly portrays this women as a greedy, heartless figure who for the sake of money wants her husband to invest in her brothers corrupt business so she can take a percentage. Herbert Marshall plays the husband, he is a generous man, a man ready to do what is right with the time he has left on earth. They have a daughter played a bit over the top by then newcomer, Teresa Wright, who garnered an oscar nomination for this role. Wrights character is naive and innocent and we see she could go either way, down the road of good like her father or inherit the selfishness of her mother.

The Little Foxes not only brings to light the issues of one family but also is a microcosm of America both then and now. Its about the wealthy taking advantage of the poor. Its about those who commit these acts and those who oppose them, and most importantly its about those who do nothing. It is hard not to see this film on a social level, but even ignoring that, the drama of the family dynamic and great performance (especially by Davis) is entertaining enough to call this a very good movie. On top of all that Wylers direction is above average as you can tell he made efforts to use the camera as a device to move the plot forward, rather than always keeping things classically shot. There is one scene in particular where Wyler keeps the camera motionless and lets the drama play out with gripping tension.

Overall this has been a great introduction to Davis, an actress I always just thought of as a classical beauty, and here she really shows her ugly side. Anyone especially interested in writing characters should check out The Little Foxes.

****

Nothing is more exciting than real estate

Guy Ritchie is a director I never really had the admiration for that many of my peers seem to hold. Lately however I want to revisit his earlier work suck as, Lock Stock and Two Smoking Barrels, and Snatch. The main reason I want to see these works again is because I think I will have more respect for the filmmaking after seeing his lesser efforts such as Sherlock Holmes and most recently RocknRolla (2008).

Unlike Holmes, RocknRolla incorporates more of Guy Ritchie's signature themes of coincidence, humor, gangsters and deals gone wrong. It is complex, quick and stylized with sharp dialogue. On most all accounts it should be considered up there with his other films, but it seems to fall flat where it most counts, with intrigue. The film never gives itself enough time to breathe and let us get to know these characters and the situations they are in that we don't care what is going on.

It is always fun to watch Tom Wilkinson as a bad guy. It is always nice to watch guys who don't seem to let a thing in the world bother them other than trying to look cool. It is intriguing to see people fight to the death in a unusual manner, but the issue is Ritchie doesn't emphasize any of these moments and because of that they all feel like a throw away. A good example of this is a scene where Gerard Butlers character, named One Two, gets found by two Russian mobsters. We think they are going to kill him right away but instead there is a scene where they tie him to the bed and look like they are about to have some psedo-sexual fun with him before killing him. Ritchie presents this very casually with no time to let it sink in, we know, One Two will not have to go through with this. If you compare this scene to a similar scene in Pulp Fiction where Tarintino allows for the scene to play out, you can understand why one film succeeds and the other doesn't.

RocknRolla is better than his more successful film Sherlock Holmes. However don't go into RocknRolla expecting any of the directors best works. You will be mildly entertained, but Ritchie needs to trust his material enough to let his humor and style play out.

***

Leave it to Beaver turned on its head

I have talked before about my slight unfamiliarity with Peter Bogdanovich's work during my review of his great film Paper Moon. Now having seen what is considered by many as his quintessential work The Last Picture Show (1971) I think I have a much better understanding of Bogdanovich as a director and storyteller.

The Last Picture Show takes place in a run down, nothing to do town in texas in the "innocent" 1950s. The interesting thing about nothing to do towns is that is where people tend to do more to make up for their self proclaimed boring existence. The film starts out quaint enough, being filmed in black and white with deep focus, really adds to the authenticity and the nostalgia of the 1950's. We meet the young high school seniors whom we find out early aren't good at football, and the older towns people try and shame them on this, but they don't seem to care. We meet Sam the Lion the purest representation of old time texas, he seems to be straight out of a John Ford movie and we will come to know him as the moral anchor of an other wise morally confused town. In the beginning Bogdanovich is pushing our expectations in one direction so that when the layers of affairs, sex, death, teen angst, the Korean War and loss start pilling up, they hit us hard.

Timothy Bottoms plays Sonny, the eyes and ears of the audience. He goes through his everyday life trying to figure out what to make of his time hear on earth, and what to do with the relationships he makes along the way. All the characters seem to be searching for something deeper and in their reaching out for that only find broken relationships, sex, war and alcohol. It seemed like only Sam the Lion knew how to make this town work, and once he was gone all was lost.

As I mentioned in my review of Paper Moon, Bogdanovich's style is minimalist but at the same time very self assured. With no wide shots, and many deep focus close ups, we get a sense of being trapped with the characters. He is not afraid to hang on someone face, and in doing so he really produces a great sense of longing in that character.

At the time of its release much had been made of the acting in this film. After all it got four acting nominations and two wins from the Academy. It introduced the likes of Jeff Bridges and Cybill Shepard, and was the first of six Oscar nominations for Ellen Burstyn. All of these performances are deserving of their recognition and I would have even added Timothy Bottoms name to that Oscar list.

I can see how when The Last Picture Show first came out it was sort of shocking to audiences. It was about an era that had not long since past, it came on the heals of many films like Easy Rider and The Graduate where consequences where second thoughts to freedoms. In a weird way it almost works in that same vein now. The early seventies were long enough ago to watch a film like this in black and white and not be off put by it, maybe even think its normal, and in evoking a time long since gone, we only have the memories of films and television of that time, which makes The Last Picture Show still shocking to our expectations.

This is a great film and maybe deserves five stars, but what it does in style and substance it lacks in personal connection. I liked Paper Moon better only because I liked that relationship better than any in The Last Picture Show, but the film still deserves praise and recognition for its achievements.

****

Top 10 Movies of 2009

So I have seen around 33-34 movies in 2009. I don't have all the time in the world so I try to see the more critically hyped films or interesting films, but still some where much better than others. Some were bad The Hangover, Away We Go, some were disappointing Public Enemies, The Road and some just missed the cut A Serious Man, 500 Days of Summer. And without further ado.....

10. Precious

9. Avatar

8. Bad Lieutenant

7. An Education

6. Moon

5. Where The Wild Things Are

4. Sin Nombre

3. The Hurt Locker

2. Inglourious Basterds

1. Adventureland