Tag: Cinema

Farewell, Iorek.

About a Boy helmer Chris Weitz is off His Dark Materials, apparently on his own cognizance. “It will be an extraordinary film, but at this point in my life I am not the right director to bring it to pass…the technical challenges of making such an epic are more than I can undertake at this point.” If so, bully for him for realizing it…but let’s hope hack directors of the Ratner-W.S. Anderson mold are kept well away from Pullman’s trilogy.

Seein’ all the angles.

By way of Lots of Co (and Triptych Cryptic), and in honor of the new no late fee policy at Blockbuster, here’s the Online Film Critics Society’s “Top 100 Overlooked Films of the 1990s“. I have no clue how Mystery Men, Sneakers or The Ref snuck on here, but any list that puts Miller’s Crossing at #1 is alright by me.

Dark Knights.

In case you couldn’t access it over the weekend (or just want a closer look), the new Batman Begins trailer is officially up, as is our most recent view of Keanu Reeves in Constantine.

Getting Colder.

It’s too bad some of Julia Roberts’ Ocean’s Twelve mojo didn’t rub off on the Closer shoot, ’cause here’s a film that could use both the fun and the self-awareness of Soderbergh’s flick. But, no, Mike Nichols’ Closer (meant, I assume, in the primal and jagged sense of the NIN song) turned out to be a pretty grievous swing and miss. Jude, Julia, Natalie, and Clive each do what they can to enliven the proceedings, but they’re fighting a losing battle this time around. Stilted and stage-y throughout, Closer feels like warmed-over Neil LaBute, and seems less a treatise on our often-frightening capacity for emotional violence as much as an excuse for A-list actors to talk dirty to each other.

First, there’s the dialogue. Perhaps Closer works better as a play, but it certainly doesn’t work as a movie. All four characters speak past each other in sterile, well-crafted bon mots that sound unspontaneous and rehearsed throughout. Then, there’s the fact that all four of these characters come off as thoroughly detestable (and not in an empathetic Sideways kinda way): Jude’s a wheedler, Julia’s depressive, Natalie’s somewhat heartless, Clive’s a bully. Thus, it becomes much easier to dismiss the characters’ respective agonies as just-desserts for awful behavior, rather than as any kind of meaningful comment on the evils “normal” people perpetrate in the name of love.

Add these flaws together and you end up with some strikingly misconceived scenes, probably none more so than Natalie’s strip-tease for a love-ravaged Clive. Both actors go for it, with Portman fearlessly parading around semi-nude and Owen drawing up barrels of rage and despair to the fore. But to what purpose? Their conversation seemed so forced and artificial, and Portman so curiously distant from the traumatized Owen (who we just saw at his worst the scene before), that it took me right out of what’s going on. Ultimately, Closer leaves you with not much more than the experience of watching first-rate actors splendidly overexert themselves on cut-rate material. And sadly, to paraphrase Morrissey, the closer they got, the more I ignored them.

Twelve Goofy Men.

Nonsensical, self-indulgent, and occasionally even a tad smarmy, Steven Soderbergh’s much-hyped Ocean’s Twelve is also, I’m happy to report, just plain fun. While Eleven was an intricately designed (and quickly forgettable) clockwork caper flick, this sequel turns out to be a rather silly, rambling affair that reeks of inside-baseball, and I mean that in the best way possible. In fact, I’d say Twelve turned out to be what Soderbergh tried and failed to do with Full Frontal…As much a riff on stars and stardom as the heist movie we were all expecting, it’s probably the most sheerly pleasurable film experience you’re going to find this side of The Incredibles.

That’s not to say there aren’t problems here. The film starts slow, reintroducing every character from the first movie as if they were the reuniting Beatles. The plot…well, the plot doesn’t make much sense at all — this isn’t the type of heist movie where you can put the jigsaw pieces together yourself. A lot of the scenes are probably a beat or two too long, and the movie’s got more endings than Return of the King. But, y’know, in the final analysis, none of that really matters. Right about the time Rusty Ryan (Brad Pitt) goes to check in on imploding (i.e. “going all Frankie Muniz”) TV star Topher Grace (“I just phoned in that Dennis Quaid movie!”), Ocean’s 12 starts to show its true colors: Forget the crime and just have a good time.

And have a good time I did, although admittedly all the Hollywood in-jokes and cameos on display here are my cuppa joe. Sure, the movie could probably have used more Clooney and more Bernie Mac, but there’s a lot of characters to keep in play here, and, besides, it got the cowbell just right. I won’t say Ocean’s Twelve is a great film, but it is a well-made, entertaining film, and it kept a smile on my face for most of its running time. So, if there’s an Ocean’s Thirteen in the works, deal me in.