Tag: Helena Bonham Carter

Ocean’s 8

Gary Ross’s film has a strong, gender flipped cast, but it’s a hollow retread of Steven Soderbergh’s “Ocean’s 11”

The real heist of “Ocean’s 8” is how they managed to fool us into thinking this was something new. Gary Ross’s film is effectively a remake of Steven Soderbergh’s “Ocean’s 11,” but with a gender-flipped cast. And instead of a radical experiment, a fresh point of view on a spectacularly male franchise, “Ocean’s 8” is an incredibly safe, unassuming, if amusing, retread with some slightly different faces.

“Ocean’s 8” starts just as Soderbergh’s film does. Danny Ocean is up for parole, but this time it’s Debbie Ocean, played with George Clooney’s same suave charm by Sandra Bullock. She’s been spending her entire prison stint concocting a brilliant heist, and now she’ll assemble a team and make it happen. Also, Danny Ocean is dead…maybe.

You know, you don’t actually have to do this, Elliot Gould explains to Debbie in a cameo. Sometimes just knowing you can pull off the job is satisfaction enough. To hear that line, it sets decidedly low stakes for “Ocean’s 8.” Even Debbie Ocean is only in it for the thrill and precision of the heist and little of substance, so why are we?  Continue reading “Ocean’s 8”

Suffragette

Sarah Gavron directs the period drama of women in 1912 London campaigning for the right to vote.

suffragette-2015-movie-posterSarah Gavron’s “Suffragette” is most relevant today as a piece of historical fiction because issues of women’s rights are in 2015 as prevalent and significant as they were in 1912 London. It’s the slightly fictionalized story of English working women who took up civil disobedience in order to pressure the government to give women the vote.

Should women be allowed to vote? Of course. The answer is so obvious that even the film provides scant arguments against it. “Suffragette” could better advance the discussion of women’s rights in 2015 if it had more to say regarding the debate and nuances of women’s rights issues in 1912. “Suffragette” is more a soapbox than a profound piece of modern feminism. And while it has strong performances and competent filmmaking, it’s even lacking as a stirring piece of dramatic historical fiction.

Carey Mulligan is excellent (although what else is new) as Maud Watts, an uneducated mother working in the laundry trade in London. She happens across her colleague Violet Miller (Anne-Marie Duff) smashing West End windows while calling for the vote for women, and she’s reluctantly pulled into the fray. Maud testifies at a parliamentary hearing in place of Violet regarding the pitiful working conditions at the laundry, and the police associate Maud with the other suffragettes (including Helena Bonham Carter and a rapid cameo from Meryl Streep), which is a different term from the non-violent suffragists.

It isn’t long before Maud comes around to the cause, despite how it estranges her from her husband Sonny (Ben Whishaw) and her young son. Sonny is a character who isn’t as monstrous as some of the other male figures in the film, who range from having severe male-gaze/ownership issues to being flat out sexual abusers, but Sonny isn’t quite sympathetic to the cause either. The only meaningful male character with principles of any sort is the police officer played by Brendan Gleeson. He unblinkingly and calmly reasons with Maud that no one cares for her or her activism, and that she’s only being used as a pawn. From Gleeson, the scene hits heavy, and he passively upholds the law without politics in mind and even calls attention to the barbaric treatment of female prisoners later in the film.

“Suffragette” stands out from the crop of most Hollywood movies simply as an example of fiction, historical or otherwise, that allow this many women on screen at once. We see them plotting attacks and even running away from explosions. “Suffragette” even takes on something of a caper vibe, but it lacks a strong sense of suspense to carry along the action. Gavron resorts instead to a lot of shaky cam, naturalistic filmmaking that doesn’t go the distance in terms of creating mood.

During the closing credits, Gavron closes “Suffragette” with a roll of major countries and the year in which they gave women the right to vote, ending with Saudi Arabia promising women the right this year. There is still work to be done, and if nothing else, “Suffragette” is still a rousing story capable of getting more and more women to speak up.

3 stars

Les Miserables

There’s a big difference in seeing an actor’s face 50 feet high on the silver screen than seeing an actor just five inches high on a stage that’s a mile away. There’s definitely something to seeing and hearing that little person live, but there’s a lot of emotion and expression that we only get from the movies.

So part of the thrill of this new adaptation of the classic musical “Les Miserables” is in making the emotions of Jean Valjean and Fantine be as big as possible. Director Tom Hooper (“The King’s Speech”) has put them in an appropriately sized film that feels epic but not overstuffed, but did he really have to make their faces so big too?

Simply put, “Les Miz” is frustratingly un-cinematic. It achieves images that the stage never could but stifles the possibilities of what a camera can do and what an epically proportioned musical can and should look like. At every moment it emblazons these characters in intense close-ups and very little breathing room. Try as Hugh Jackman might to parade around the room of a monastery, the camera follows him mercilessly, refusing to break from a centered close-up of Valjean’s ill-fated face as though the camera were attached to a harness around his chest.

Hooper covers his tracks by chopping the movie to bits in the editing room. The average shot length is infuriatingly short, but not in the excessive Baz Luhrmann way either; Hooper simply doesn’t know when to stay put.

He does however realize that there’s true wonder in seeing the whole cast belt out a medley of themes during magnificent pop opera numbers like “One Day More,” and this is especially true when we get the opportunity to see them on stage together. Why then should Hooper separate each individual singer into claustrophobic boxes? Why does he refuse to let multiple characters share the frame at once? Why must it look like we’re watching this whole movie on a stadium Jumbotron?

It gets nauseating and delirious watching something so jarring. The makeup and hairstyles are garish, the lighting is dark and muddy, and the camera captures Parisian alleys and sewers with Dutch angles and a quivering hand. It can be as punishing as watching Fantine (Anne Hathaway) drunkenly stumble around in agony during the “Lovely Lady” number.

You long for the firm hand and intricate medium shots Hooper used to excess in “The King’s Speech” and “The Damned United.” How did this director change so thoroughly between films? Now Hooper’s close-ups are so intensified, they’d be boring to look at if Anne Hathaway weren’t pouring her heart and soul into “I Dreamed a Dream.”

She, amongst the rest of the cast, really are the saving grace of “Les Miz.” Hathaway’s Fantine is really just a minor character in this epic revolution drama, but amongst all the moments each character gets to themselves, hers is by far the most memorable, her face convulsing in agony and her eyes too sad to even care the camera is so close.

Much of these gripes won’t matter much to most audiences. They’ll be swept up in the way I was upon first seeing a touring production of “Les Miserables” in London, invigorated and inspired by the story’s themes of commitment, honor and spirituality. But to those who pay attention to cinematography and editing, least of all in a treasured musical where these things matter most of all, “Les Miz” will feel mighty clumsy.

3 stars

Dark Shadows

I didn’t know “Dark Shadows” was based on a soap opera until my friend amusingly explained this: “It was this kind of boring soap opera that no one watched until one season they introduced a vampire to the show and everyone’s minds just exploded.”

The problem then with Tim Burton’s “Dark Shadows” is its inability to just make my mind explode.
Burton has always been a unique director. It’s possible that none of his films can be strictly classified into one genre, and “Dark Shadows” is no different. This one begins on a note of period piece horror fantasy with scents of the original “Dracula” in the film’s gorgeous CGI iconography.

This opening takes place in 1772 with the Collins family establishing a thriving colony on the American coastline. The son Barnabas Collins (Johnny Depp) is cursed by the witch Angelique (Eva Green) when he gives up her for his true love, Josette (Bella Heathcote). Angelique turns Barnabas into a vampire and imprisons him for 200 years, only to wake up in the swinging 1970s. Now Barnabas returns to his surviving ancestors and fights to rebuild the family business, taking down Angelique, also now two centuries old and running strong, in the process.

The fish-out-of-water game is old-hat no matter what setting or mythical creature you put into the formula, and although Depp revels in manipulating everything with an elegantly antiquated misunderstanding of modern technology, slang and etiquette, Burton never knows how to own any of these jokes.

The film and its dialogue constantly teeter on understated comedy and a haunted house ghost movie without ever dipping into campy, absurd or soapy territory. Burton will instead play an Alice Cooper song or some other ‘70s rock staple to suggest the change of tone, and the film never has go for broke laughs or campy charm. Continue reading “Dark Shadows”

Alice in Wonderland (2011)

Tim Burton’s “Alice in Wonderland” remake isn’t as clever as “Avatar” with its use of 3-D and suffers from a sad third act.

Tim Burton’s “Alice in Wonderland” may be a very faithful adaptation of the Lewis Carroll novels. But the book is “Through the Looking Glass,” not Through the Victorian Oil Painting. Wonderment has never been this tedious.

When Alice (Mia Wasikowska) falls down the rabbit hole, this time at the age of 19, she arrives in Underland, convinced this is a new place to her despite the numerous dreams she had of what she called Wonderland when she was a child. The stock of Carroll heroes including a smoking caterpillar, talking flowers, Tweedledee and Tweedledum, the Cheshire Cat, a feisty mouse, the white rabbit and of course the Mad Hatter (Johnny Depp) all debate whether she is the right Alice. If so, she is destined to slay a dragon-like monster called the Jabberwocky, remove the evil Red Queen (Helena Bonham Carter) from power and return Underland to its once glorious state under the rule of the White Queen (Anne Hathaway).

The trick with adapting this story, as it has been done so many times before, is clarifying that it is not a kid’s story. Doing so opens it up to a whole new level development flaws. Aside from not being a cartoonish experience full of joy and wonder, Alice is an uninteresting straight-man put through a series of increasingly quirky and odd encounters with one-dimensional characters. Continue reading “Alice in Wonderland (2011)”

The King’s Speech

“The King’s Speech” was made in the 1940s, I’m almost sure of it. Director Tom Hooper’s film feels so much like one, and it’s just as good as anything in that golden age of movies.

For example, a majority of the films released during that time went to promoting the war effort and used World War II as a real world back drop. “The King’s Speech” is based on the true story of King George VI, who despite a crippling fear of public speaking and a terrible speech impediment, overcame his disability to unite the country during war time while the whole world was for the first time listening on radio.

And everything about the film screams that classical quality. The screen acting is superb and charismatic. The dialogue is fast, witty and poignant. The spacious cinematography compliments the dim art direction that begs to have been shot in black and white.

“The King’s Speech” is a true throwback to the good ‘ole days, and I suspect this film that won the top prize at the Toronto Film Festival will give “The Social Network” a run for its money in the Best Picture race, becoming a battle between the values of new and old Hollywood. Continue reading “The King’s Speech”