Category: Cinema

Biological Hazard.

The teaser trailer for Paul Anderson’s Aliens vs. Predator flick is now online. What a terrible, terrible idea. Both Ridley Scott and James Cameron have expressed interest in making another Alien film, and yet Fox greenlights this piece of hack garbage? Bleah.

Secret Agent Man.

So I caught The Station Agent the other night and, while it’s not the type of film that’ll set the world on fire, it is an eminently enjoyable rumination on loneliness, friendship, and trains. (As such, it was also a movie worth seeing at the Angelika, since for once the omnipresent subway sounds below the theater added to the film experience.)

The Station Agent works best when it lets its three main characters — a distant (and distinctly short) train-enthusiast (Peter Dinklage), a divorced artist (Patricia Clarkson), and a gregarious food-vendor (the scene-stealing Bobby Cannavale) — hang out and get to relish each other’s company despite themselves. In these scenes, the movie has a nice, unforced air and a great sense of wit about it.

The train derails in the second half, however, when Agent feels the need to introduce dramatic tension by foisting “real life problems” on this funny trio…almost all of which come across as forced. (This is also the point in the film when the don’t-pick-on-little-persons consciousness-raising comes to the fore and, well, frankly I think I’m part of the problem. There’s a key scene where Dinklage ties one on at a local bar, jumps onto the counter, and angrily denounces the staring eyes all about him, and all I could think was “Wow, this is just like Bree…I wonder if Dinklage should’ve played Frodo.”) At any rate, despite the stock emotional issues wedged into the second act, the film ends well, returning to the low-key, believable, and funny tone of friendship that dictated the first hour, and all in all, The Station Agent makes for a good time at the movies. If nothing else, it’s worth catching on The Sundance Channel in a few months.

Bat (and Spider) out of Hell.

“The God that holds you over the pit of hell, much as one holds a spider or some loathsome insect over the fire, abhors you, and is dreadfully provoked.” Non-sequiturs aside, the Hellboy site goes live. I don’t know much about the comic, to be honest, but so far, this still looks intriguing. Also in comic film news, Sony releases the Spiderman 2 poster…note the mini-Alfred Molina in Spidey’s eye.

Cry Me a River.

So I caught Mystic River the other night and, with its crisp, no-nonsense direction and a glut of extraordinary performances (I liked everyone but Laura Linney, who — like Jeremy Davies — always comes across as overly mannered to me), it pretty much has to be considered an Oscar contender. Sean Penn, Kevin Bacon, and especially Tim Robbins all disappear into their meaty roles, while a mousy Marcia Gay Harden and a large-and-in-charge Lawrence Fishburne (Morpheus, dude, lay off the bacon) provide excellent supporting work. Sure, there are elements of the movie that bugged me – For one, I thought the conceit with Kevin Bacon’s silent wife was just plain goofy. (Can you hear me now? Good!) For another, the pieces of the murder mystery are all in place before the wheel of Fate grinds to its inexorable conclusion, so there’s a good ten-twenty minutes there where you’re just waiting for the characters to do what it is they have to do.

All in all, though, I thought Mystic River was a film well-worth seeing, one with well-developed, multifaceted characters and a strong, rooted sense of place. (Naturally, I was reminded of the months I spent in Somerville.) It seems people are running hot and cold on the fifteen minute coda at the end of the film — Linney’s speech aside, I actually liked it, and thought Harden’s last few moments (and the parade echoing the first scene of the film) were kinda chilling. As Sean, Jimmy, and Dave all note, one could easily imagine a Twilight Zone episode where the lives of the three main characters were switched, depending on which of them was forced to become “the boy who escaped from wolves.” To paraphrase the son of an altogether different neighborhood, sometimes the world is a monster, bad to swallow you whole.

The Trials of St. Veronica.

Caught Veronica Guerin over the weekend, and, well, frankly, don’t bother. I had hoped Cate Blanchett might make this project interesting, but this by-the-numbers Joel Schumacher schmaltzfest never rises above the level of a Lifetime channel movie of the week. It breezes through scene after scene of Guerin’s tough-as-nails-with-a-heart-of-gold interview style and the obligatory home v. work domestic squabbles like Scriptwriting 101, and never gives us a very interesting portrait of its protagonist, other than to cast her as some neglected patron saint of journalism. Similarly, the bad guys have become really bad — While the real Guerin took on a cannabis cartel, this film’s gangsters are trafficking in heroin, resulting in grim visions of needle parks, toddlers playing with syringes, strung-out teenagers prostituting themselves, and sundry other shocking evils that have little basis in Guerin’s real story. If anything, the film’s dependence on so many standard cinematic cliches is a disservice to the real Veronica Guerin, who was murdered by Dublin’s criminal element for exposing the truth to the light of day. Why obscure her tale and besmirch her ultimate sacrifice in the line of duty by stripping it of the character nuances and human complexities that separate the real world from dramatic convention? A sadly mechanical genre exercise devoid of anything but formula, Veronica Guerin is a missed opportunity and a shame.

Nite Moves.

AICN claims John Cusack is cast as the Nite-Owl in the hopefully forthcoming Watchmen. Cusack is a quality actor that I’m glad to see attached to this project. But as the Nite-Owl? Isn’t he a bit young and skinny? The Nite-Owl really should be played by an older actor, or by someone who’s gone a bit more to seed. Tom Hulce?