The consistently interesting Peter Weir chooses his next project: Shantaram, with Johnny Depp. “The story follows an Australian heroin addict who escapes a maximum-security prison and reinvents himself in India as a doctor in the slums of Bombay. His attempt to find medicine for his destitute patients leads him into counterfeiting, gunrunning and smuggling.” But will they be trying to tempt him, because he comes from the land of plenty?
Category: Cinema
A Troubled Sparrow.
Avast, ye scurvy dogs…The teaser for Pirates of the Caribbean 2: Dead Man’s Chest is now online, and it looks in keeping with the spirit of the first.
“The Myth of the Native Babe.”
“Mythologies aren’t created for the purpose of telling history, they’re created for the purpose of trying to devise some form of identity for people.” On the eve of Terence Malick’s highly-awaited The New World (out Christmas Day), the NYT‘s Steve Chagollan briefly assesses portrayals of Pocahontas in film. (Via Dangerous Meta.)
Narnia in Nine.
Warning: Here there be spoilers. From the Battle of Britain to the Battle for Narnia, this new nine minute supertrailer for The Lion, The Witch, & The Wardrobe pretty much walks you through the entire movie. That being said, it does look right nice, and I’m looking forward to more of Tilda Swinton. (Liam Neeson, on the other hand, has done one too many mentor roles by this point.)
Apes in the News.
“‘A few people have already asked me why we’re taking twice as long to tell essentially the same story,’ says the director. ‘And I don’t really know. We’ve been asking that ourselves. I’m going to have to come up with a better answer.'” Newsweek‘s Devin Gordon sizes up PJ’s King Kong, and he seems to really like it: Jackson “proved once again that he might be the only guy whose films are worth getting on a plane and flying halfway around the planet to see.”
Suburban Warrior.
After Good Night & Good Luck and Syriana, how can George Clooney continue his hot streak? Easy…direct a Coen brothers script. Upon wrapping Stephen Soderbergh’s The Good German, Clooney will take a swing at Suburbicon, a Coen project that’s been in mothballs.
Ticket to Ride.
The new teaser for Cars is online. I’m not really feeling it, but after the Toy Storys, Finding Nemo, and The Incredibles, I’ll give Team Pixar the benefit of the doubt.
Silent Night, Deadly Night.
Coming as it does from the director of Caddyshack and Groundhog Day, Harold Ramis’ The Ice Harvest is a surprisingly mordant and misanthropic piece of work. If your tastes run along such lines (as mine do), it’s an enjoyable neo-noir reminiscent of Blood Simple, one that’s fitfully amusing but rarely laugh-out-loud funny. But, particularly after seeing Goblet and Syriana, The Ice Harvest also feels somewhat unrealized and, for the most part, instantly forgettable. As 2 Days in the Valley and Things to do in Denver When You’re Dead are to Pulp Fiction, this movie is to Fargo…at best, it’s the type of movie you might find yourself watching on cable one thoroughly miserable holiday evening.
In a nutshell, The Ice Harvest plays like Grand Theft Auto: Wichita. (Or, put another way, it answers the question, “What if Kansas were more like Oz?”) As the film begins, we meet up with the Pushing Tin duo of John Cusack and Billy Bob Thornton — here a mob lawyer and pornographer respectively — soon after they’ve acquired over $2 million of ill-gotten loot from the coffers of the local mafioso (Randy Quaid). All they have to do is wait out the night — Christmas Eve — on account of an ice storm (which doesn’t seem to prevent them from driving around much), before skipping town for warmer climes. So, Cusack decides to hit up various strip clubs and nightspots — including one run by Wichita femme fatale Connie Nielsen (as always, deserving of better roles) and another frequented by Cusack’s alcoholic buddy (and second husband to his ex-wife) Oliver Platt (doing a variation on his Huff character) — all the while evading the mob’s muscle (Mike Starr, playing to form).
The first half of The Ice Harvest moves languorously, but it feels like it’s building to something. But…unfortunately, it’s not. Around the midway point, right when we seem to be achieving narrative momentum, the movie instead starts somewhat remorselessly killing off many of the characters we’ve recently met. Indeed, entire plotlines seem jettisoned (Cusack’s ex-wife, the incriminating photograph) in favor of a high body count. And, frankly, by the time the last folks standing get to the final, bloody shootout, I had pretty much checked out. There are definitely some amusing episodes along the way, and special marks go to Oliver Platt’s comic lush and Billy Bob Thornton’s usual brand of weary resignation (particularly involving his wife). But as a whole, The Ice Harvest just doesn’t hang together. I’m as up for a Christmas dish served ice-cold as anyone, but this harvest, despite signs of early promise, comes up fallow.
The Oil Down the Desert Way.
While perhaps a bit too dry and convoluted for some tastes, Stephen Gaghan’s Syriana is, IMHO, a top-notch political thriller that’s easily one of the best films of the year. Admitedly, the movie is missing some of the Soderberghian visual flourishes that made the very similar Traffic so memorable, and the movie definitely can be tough to follow. But, in a way, that’s part of its charm — Like the film’s protagonists, we only occasionally glimpse the shadowy tendrils of the beast that is Big Oil, and come to share their despair that it can ever be subdued. In sum, like the other recent Clooney outing, Good Night, and Good Luck, Syriana is both an intelligent, compelling work of cinema and a enthralling piece of social commentary, one that not only feels pertinent but necessary.
As you probably know, the movie jetsets around the globe following several facets of the oil trade and its consequences. In Beirut, an aging, disgruntled CIA agent (a stout George Clooney, resembling in Stephanie Zacharek’s words a “depressed circus bear”) starts to ask questions above his pay-grade about the collateral damage from a recent operation. In Geneva, after a family tragedy, a fresh-faced energy analyst (Matt Damon) becomes consigliere to the ambitious heir (Alexander Siddig) of a Middle-Eastern emirate. In Washington DC, a resourceful lawyer (Jeffrey Wright) begins due diligence work on an merger between two oil firms (the smaller headed by Chris Cooper). And, on the oil fields themselves, an increasingly desperate Pakistani emigrant (Mazhar Munir) begins to contemplate drastic action to change his fortunes, and those of his family.
Along the way, Syriana‘s narrative is further fractured by the comings and goings of other famous faces, including Amanda Peet as Damon’s suffering wife, William Hurt as another grizzled agency vet, Tim Blake Nelson as the poster child for Abramoff‘s America, and Christopher Plummer as an insider among insiders. But, even though Plummer comes closest to being the Cigarette Smoking Man of this particular conspiracy tale, Syriana doesn’t offer any quick fixes or easy answers to the often grim story that unfolds. Some of our heroes find redemption or closure, true, but others become resigned to their fate, or even corrupted. And, ultimately, there is no Big Reveal or cathartic Speaking-Truth-To-Power scene to offer solace to the audience — Instead, we’re confronted with a system that, for better or worse, lumbers on, oblivious to either the machinations or the protests of mere individuals.
Depressing, indeed, even despairing at times, this film still feels like a story that must be told. And while viewers may quibble with some of the details of Gaghan’s Tarbell-esque expose of the political economy of oil, hopefully most will agree: We need more movies like Syriana.
He’s Deranged.
Ground Control to Major Tom: So Michael Caine won’t be Nikola Tesla in Chris Nolan’s The Prestige (also with Christian Bale & Hugh Jackman)…That’s part’s gone to the inimitable David Bowie, who’s been basically out of the film scene since Basquiat in 1996. Now that’s fun casting.