Tag: Rachel Weisz

The Light Between Oceans

Derek Cianfrance’s more modest adaptation doesn’t have the explosive proportions of his previous films.

the_light_between_oceans_posterDerek Cianfrance’s films have big emotions, sprawling, slow burn narratives and are steeped in conflict, romance, melodrama and more. He takes intimate stories, like a deteriorating marriage in “Blue Valentine,” or a relationship between two fathers on opposite sides of the law in “The Place Beyond the Pines,” and blows them up with Biblical importance and gravity. In the process, he wrings some incredible performances and powerful drama out of movies that might otherwise feel overwrought.

With his latest film “The Light Between Oceans,” he’s bestowed a small-scale character drama and romance with major emotion and conflict all on the surface level, but it hasn’t been expanded to Cianfrance size. It’s a modest tearjerker with spiritual qualities and a compelling story, but it doesn’t have the explosive moments that would make it truly resonate.

“The Light Between Oceans” is based on a novel by M.L. Stedman, unread by me. It’s set in 1918 shortly after World War I. Tom Sherbourne (Michael Fassbender) was decorated in the war and now seeks a life of solitude as a lighthouse keeper on an island miles away from civilization. In time he meets and marries Isabel Graysmark (Alicia Vikander) and brings her to live on the island. They’re deeply in love, but twice Isabel suffers a miscarriage. And then suddenly, a boat appears washed up on the island. The man inside is dead, but a baby girl lives. Continue reading “The Light Between Oceans”

The Lobster

Greek director Yorgos Lanthimos envisions a dystopian future in a satire about modern romance.

TheLobsterPosterIf you could be transformed into any animal, which would it be? It sounds like a bad question on a dating website, and yet we’ve become more reliant on such quirks in defining relationships and romance. Colin Farrell chooses to be the title animal in “The Lobster,” an absurdist satire that uses a hilariously bizarre, futuristic premise to lampoon the idea of modern love.

Director Yorgos Lanthimos, the Greek director behind “Dogtooth” now working in the English language, imagines a future in which it’s a law to have a romantic partner. Those without one, like David (Farrell) after recently becoming a widower, are sent to an upscale resort hotel and given 45 days to find a match or be transformed into an animal of their choice.

Lanthimos has some fun in subtly revealing the details of this premise, and the film’s deadpan style slowly works its way from raised-eyebrow peculiarities to laugh-out-loud moments of uneasy humor. For instance, David casually drops the detail that his dog is actually his brother who didn’t “make it.” When he arrives at the hotel, his choice to become a lobster has more to do with survival than preference. He envisions a long life span, an ability to swim and an easier chance at mating, and we wonder if David’s not actually trying to make it as a human any longer but simply waiting out the clock.

The details get stranger. Periodically the hotel guests are required to participate in a hunt for “loners,” single people who have rejected the rules of society and now live in the forest. Bagging one nabs you an extra day, and some hotel guests have spent years here as a result. Lanthimos stages these hunts like graceful slow-motion sequences in a Michael Mann film, stylized, operatic and wholly absurd. Guests are also tethered through their belt loops and restricted from masturbating; one who breaks the rule (John C. Reilly) gets his hand shoved in a toaster during breakfast. And only those who share similar characteristics to each other can become couples. One young girl (Jessica Barden) touts that she gets sporadic nosebleeds. David might be interested, but his trait is that he’s shortsighted, so no match.

“The Lobster” works great as a dystopian comedy (without explanation, random elephants or flamingos can be spotted in the background), but it helps that these oddities have parallels to dating in 2016. We give too much weight to superficial character traits, we go to great lengths to remain in love, we assign unnecessary rules and norms on society, and we shun those who can’t find a significant other. Lanthimos approaches these themes with ironic levity, like when the hotel’s manager informs an aspiring couple, “If you cannot solve any problems yourselves, you will be assigned children,” or with shocking poignancy, like the line, “A relationship can’t be built on a lie,” after it’s revealed one member of a couple faked a similar character trait.

Of course we know love is never defined by strict rules. Lanthimos’s deadpan tone, with every character delivering their lines in matter-of-fact, staccato notes (not to mention a score that’s equally terse and arresting), underscores the need to dismantle what he sees as ludicrous institutions.

Love however is something of an act of survival. For as comically bleak as “The Lobster” can be, the romance formed between Farrell and another loner played by Rachel Weisz reaches touching heights. Lanthimos asks if it’s harder to pretend you have feelings or that you don’t, and there’s a push-and-pull between this film’s harder exterior and softer inside. It’s a perfect match.

4 stars

Youth

YouthPosterNo filmmaker is more of a modern day Fellini than Italian auteur Paolo Sorrentino. His films are opulent wonders, but while his extravagant visual style has for some become a sensory overload, it was Sorrentino reckoning with that same opulence in his last film, the Oscar winning foreign language film “The Great Beauty”, that made that film’s fantasy a welcome escape.

With “Youth”, the colorful set dressing places us in a dream state. Like his previous English language film “This Must Be The Place”, “Youth” is a movie about aging artists in their twilight years, and it grapples with ideas of memory and love across lucid dreams and nightmares, as well as the more practical reality of old age. It’s enchantingly lush, abstract and fascinatingly stylized, but the self-indulgent cinematic flourishes aren’t as central to the narrative as Sorrentino made possible with “The Great Beauty.”

The film is set in a luxuriously fantastical hotel and spa in the Swiss Alps, where the legendary English composer Fred Ballinger (Michael Caine) and American film director Mick Boyle (Harvey Keitel) holiday over the summer. Fred is approached by an emissary to the Queen, who would like for him to come out of retirement and conduct a performance of his “Simple Songs,” arrangements that made him famous but that he considers trifling. But his reasons for his retirement and his apathy are personal, and Caine plays Fred as guarded, a little jaded, but still in good spirits as he waits out his life. Mick has recruited some young, hipster screenwriters to pen his last film and swan song, which he calls “Life’s Last Day.” But Fred and Mick together rarely talk work or feelings, instead one-upping the other on how few drops they got out going to the bathroom that morning, or reminiscing about an old flame they both had a crush on.

Fred and Mick’s conversations about pissing are amusing, but not without merit. These daily tasks, along with the entirety of their life’s work, take tremendous effort, yet produce an often modest result, Fred says. At his age, Fred can still conduct with grace, leading an orchestra of cows in nature in a beautiful aria, but what is the point of creating memories if we know we’ll lose them?

Fred is burdened by the loss of his wife Melanie, and his daughter and assistant Lena (Rachel Weisz) tries to encourage him to leave this hotel and at least leave flowers for the first time in 10 years. But no one is leaving this place. And how could you, when everything is so gorgeous?

Young and old, supporting characters color the decorum of this hotel, and “Youth” becomes less a movie driven by its plot and more by its contemplative assessments of character. There’s Jimmy Tree, a brooding artist of Christian Bale’s caliber with Johnny Depp’s oddities and facial hair, and yet played by Paul Dano. Like Fred, Jimmy played a robot in a mindless entertainment and has his other artistic achievements virtually erased among the people who recognize him. Another is a Spanish football star with a giant tattoo on his back that has made him into something of a messiah figure. He now has a giant gut, but can do wonders with a tennis ball. One sophisticated couple never speaks a word at dinner, each of them seething at what this marriage has become. And even Miss Universe makes an appearance, becoming a literal bathing beauty to further pull us into this dream world.

Sadly these characters are just coloring, with Sorrentino perhaps showing too unhealthy of a fixation on the female, and sometimes male, body, and it takes Jane Fonda channeling an ultimate diva to yank us back to reality. “Youth” is at its best when Caine, Keitel, Weisz and Dano are all being bluntly honest with one another. The four, along with Fonda in her scene stealing moment, are all as good as they’ve been in years. They act their age; they have chemistry and a personable quality that grounds them in this free-floating film.

It can’t be said enough how gorgeous and elegant “Youth” looks. “The Great Beauty” had a shot that literally tipped the camera on its head, and “Youth” begins in a similar fashion. Sorrentino’s opening shot places us on a revolving stage, always disorienting his audience and placing us in a reverie without knowing why. And another seems almost impossible, with the camera rising out of a pool and then seamlessly floating overhead to the soccer star sunbathing.

But unlike “The Great Beauty”, the majesty of “Youth” is in the simpler story at its center, and the dreamy mise-en-scene is at best lovely but at worst distracting. Jane Fonda’s diva actress sums it up best: “Life goes on, even without all that cinema bullshit.”

3 stars

Off The Red Carpet: Week of 11/28 – 12/5

I was tempted to just post this article on Tuesday, because this week has been HUGE for Oscar news. Three categories shortlisted and the first of the critics’ awards dropped; that’s a lot to cover.

New York Film Critics Circle Announce 2012 Awards

I wrote more on the Oscar chances for all of these movies now that the NYFCC has had their say at a new blog called The Artifice. Just know that “Zero Dark Thirty” is now the movie to beat, McConaughey and Weisz have earned a new life, and “The Master” is facing an increasingly uphill battle at a nomination. (via nyfcc.com) UPDATE: Turns out the movies that do not appear on this list didn’t do as badly as everyone expected. The NYFCC has a complicated ballot voting system to determine winners in each category, and this year just about every category was taken to multiple rounds of voting to determine a consensus, proving that 2012 has a wide array of great movies with supporters in every camp. In fact, “Lincoln,” which performed so handsomely here, actually placed fourth on the overall ballot for Best Picture, behind “The Master” and “Moonrise Kingdom.” (via J. Hoberman)

Best Picture: Zero Dark Thirty

Best Director: Kathryn Bigelow – Zero Dark Thirty

Best Screenplay: Tony Kushner – Lincoln

Best Actress: Rachel Weisz – The Deep Blue Sea

Best Actor: Daniel Day-Lewis – Lincoln

Best Supporting Actress: Sally Field – Lincoln

Best Supporting Actor: Matthew McConaughey – Bernie, Magic Mike

Best Cinematographer: Greig Fraser – Zero Dark Thirty

Best Animated Film: Frankenweenie

Best Non-Fiction Film: The Central Park Five

Best Foreign Film: Amour

Best First Film: David France – How to Survive a Plague

searching-for-sugar-man-main

Documentary Feature category shortlisted

Maybe normal people think it’s crazy that documentaries, of all things, could make some movie buffs so up in arms. And yet that is the case every year when the Documentary Branch of the Academy announces their shortlist. Now granted, last year these people snubbed Werner Herzog, Errol Morris and Steve James, so it was unlikely there was going to be even greater fervor this year. But, despite me having seen only a handful, the number of films I’ve heard of on this list of 15 and the number still absent speak to how great a year it’s been for documentaries. All this despite the branch’s head Michael Moore instating new rules, such as the requirement to get your movie screened in New York and L.A. and reviewed by The New York Times. Here’s the list: (via Oscars.com)

“Ai Weiwei: Never Sorry”

“Bully”

“Chasing Ice”

“Detropia”

“Ethel”

“5 Broken Cameras”

“The Gatekeepers”

“The House I Live In”

“How to Survive a Plague”

“The Imposter”

“The Invisible War”

“Mea Maxima Culpa: Silence in the House of God”

“Searching for Sugar Man”

“This is Not a Film”

“The Waiting Room”

So missing from this list is “The Central Park Five,” which if you were paying attention above just won the NYFCC honors, “West of Memphis,” “The Queen of Versailles,” “Paul Williams Still Alive,” “Marley,” “Jiro Dreams of Sushi,” “Samsara” and “Marina Ambrovic: The Artist is Present,” which, admittedly, could be a short list all its own. This list of 15 could be a lot worse than it is, and the few that have been snubbed won’t have any trouble getting seen. This is me trying to not get too angry.

SNOW WHITE AND THE HUNTSMAN

Visual Effects category shortlisted

The Academy announced on Thursday the list of 10 potential nominees in the Visual Effects category. The full list is below: (via Oscars.com)

“The Amazing Spider-Man”
“Cloud Atlas”
“The Dark Knight Rises”
“The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey”
“John Carter”
“Life of Pi”
“Marvel’s The Avengers”
“Prometheus”
“Skyfall”
“Snow White and the Huntsman”

You’ll immediately notice the snub of “The Impossible,” which has an unbelievably lifelike depiction of a tsunami hitting Thailand. My guess is that “The Impossible’s” sequence, while dazzling, is just a small part of an otherwise effects free movie, thus paving the way instead for these 10 gargantuan Hollywood blockbusters. “Snow White,” “John Carter” and “Spider-Man” may all be surprises, but more pleasant surprises would’ve been something like “Beasts of the Southern Wild,” “The Grey,” “The Cabin in the Woods,” “Looper,” “Flight” or even “Chronicle” from way back in February.

Best Live Action Short Film Category shortlisted

This may come as a shock, but the Live Action short category is actually news! The news here is that the shortlist has a record 11 films on it due to a tie in the voting. That won’t mean any more or less nominees, still anywhere from three to five, but it’s something. The only names you’ll recognize however are Ron and Bryce Dallas Howard for their short film “when you find me.” Good luck seeing any of these. (via Oscars.com)

“A Fábrica (The Factory),” Aly Muritiba, director (Grafo Audiovisual)

“Asad,” Bryan Buckley, director, and Mino Jarjoura, producer (Hungry Man)

“Buzkashi Boys,” Sam French, director, and Ariel Nasr, producer (Afghan Film Project)

“Curfew,” Shawn Christensen, director (Fuzzy Logic Pictures)

“Death of a Shadow (Dood van een Schaduw),” Tom Van Avermaet, director, and Ellen De Waele, producer (Serendipity Films)

“Henry,” Yan England, director (Yan England)

“Kiruna-Kigali,” Goran Kapetanovic, director (Hepp Film AB)

“The Night Shift Belongs to the Stars,” Silvia Bizio and Paola Porrini Bisson, producers (Oh! Pen LLC)

“9meter,” Anders Walther, director, and Tivi Magnusson, producer (M & M Productions A/S)

“Salar,” Nicholas Greene, director, and Julie Buck, producer (Nicholas Greene)

“when you find me,” Ron Howard, executive producer, and Bryce Dallas Howard, director (Freestyle Picture Company)

“Amour” sweeps European Film Awards

It isn’t so often a Palme D’Or winner can actually devour every other award its up for. “Amour” won Best European Picture, Director for Michael Haneke, Actor for Jean-Louis Trintignant and Actress for Emmanuelle Riva. That’s why this is increasingly looking like an even bigger Oscar contender than some are predicting. For what it’s worth, Haneke has already won Best Director for both “The White Ribbon” and “Cache.” (via Indiewire)

Week 7 Predictions Continue reading “Off The Red Carpet: Week of 11/28 – 12/5”

The Deep Blue Sea

As “The Deep Blue Sea” opens, it shows the subtitle “London” basking in a glistening lamp light glow as oboe and strings seem to weep over the top of it. The movie fades in and out on a lonely woman as though it were dozing to the sound of the hissing furnace. Based on a play by Terence Rattigan, “The Deep Blue Sea” is about a woman who loves too deeply. And by the look of even the film’s overly maudlin and melodramatic opening, Terence Davies’s movie must be too in love with itself too.

In “around 1950” London, Hester (Rachel Weisz) is living a stuffy, unhappy marriage with an older British judge, Sir William Collyer (Simon Russell Beale), when she starts an affair with a young, chipper air force pilot, Freddie Page (Tom Hiddleston).

It would be impossible not to love Freddie based on how Britishy and “smashing” he is at all times, but it seems as if the two are drawn to each other based on the movie’s musical intensity or their own effervescent glow they seem to emanate from the screen. They are so in love that we see an aerial shot of their pale, naked bodies bathed in soft blue light interlocking and spiraling in an ungainly dreamlike reverie.

Hester begins living with Freddie after a troubling visit to William’s mother’s house. William’s mother is, to put it nicely, a catty bitch who hates Hester and scoffs in a dry, hoity toity way that Hester should replace her “passion” with simply “guarded enthusiasm.”

After a few months together, Hester tries to commit suicide when Freddie forgets her birthday. She says the problem for her extreme behavior is that she loves too much and knows he can never love her the same. Her real problem is that although he has nothing to offer her personally or financially, she seems to love unconditionally without reason or specifics, and it causes her to act irrationally.

The two get into a shouting match at an art museum over little more than a dumb joke, and the movie spends the rest of the time in lonely one-shots and pallid lighting to make Hester look plain insane. You’d like them to deal with their problems in a more civil, timely way, to sleep on it at least, but these people can’t even look at each other without feeling emotionally damaged.

“The Deep Blue Sea” indulges in these overwrought emotions. Its monumental theatricality is all glossy polish and no natural finesse or realism. One critic described it as a visual tone poem, but this tone is erratic. One minute Hester is plain giddy and the next moment she’s a ghost, as if the world has ended around her.

Weisz can turn on and off the intensity and emptiness like a light switch, making her a long shot contender for an Oscar, but she renders Hester a moody, over the top romantic without a shred of the womanly intuition that her landlady Mrs. Elton demonstrates in one late scene.

“The Deep Blue Sea” tries to be lovely, but it’s love is lofty and extreme, a love most normal people don’t want anything to do with.

1 ½ stars

The Bourne Legacy

After four movies in the Jason Bourne franchise, the only real thing we need to know about Treadstone is that it’s bad, it’s embarrassing to the American government and it’s a PR nightmare that needs to be erased.

So why do we need “The Bourne Legacy” to tediously fill in the details in the same dry, gritty, copycat style as though it were 2+ hours of deleted footage from the Bourne trilogy?

“The Bourne Legacy” is an absurd film bogged down with an endless arsenal of uninteresting characters, pseudo-science jargon and strictly serious attitudes. It’s about as ridiculous as a Bond film but hardly any fun. Continue reading “The Bourne Legacy”

The Fountain

It isn’t easy to make a masterpiece, even if your ambitions are in the right place, you’re a talented director with a knack for visual effects and you’ve seen “2001: A Space Odyssey” hundreds of times. “The Fountain” is an extravagant film about immortality, but sadly, it’s not the sort of film that will be remembered for eternity.

“The Fountain” spans thousands of years from the age of a Spanish conquistador raiding the Mayans to a surgeon in present day to a time beyond time or space where a man with a shaved head levitates around a bubble floating in the cosmos as he cares for a dying tree. The man in all three time periods is played by Hugh Jackman, and in each he is bound by a promise of love to his wife. In the present she’s Izzy (Rachel Weisz), a dying writer. In the past she’s Queen Isabella. In the future she’s the tree. Continue reading “The Fountain”