Savage Acting, Writing, Directing.

Movie Review: Savages

Director: Oliver Stone

Reviewed: 31 December 2012

jamesintexas rating--*

Oliver Stone's tepid new film "Savages" is more memorable to me for its building-sized Hollywood advertisements making use of the main characters wearing terrifying skeletal masks than for any sort of commitment to story, character development, or narrative.  I like the masks; they are scary.

It is difficult to reconcile this filmmaking with the exhilaration displayed in "Platoon," "JFK," or "Natural Born Killers.  Yet even so, if I didn't know who the director was (and to be true, this film seems stripped of most of Oliver Stone's fingerprints), "Savages" would still be a disappointment.  It hinges upon two friends, Chon (Taylor Kitsch) and Ben (Aaron Taylor-Johnson), who are Yin and Yang; one, an ex-soldier turned mercenary and the other, an eco-warrior interested in using pot profits to save the world.  Both are united in love for O (Blake Lively), a Malibu party-girl who completes the noncompetitive love triangle and narrates the film.  Along the Pacific Coast Highway, Chon and Ben create and distribute the most powerful strains of marijuana which does not go unnoticed by the Tijuana cartels, represented by Lado (Benicio Del Toro), businessman Alex (Damian Bichir), and kingpin Elena, La Reina (a vicious Salma Hayek).  South moves North, and Chon and Ben must decide whether to walk away or to work with the cartel.  And, to add pressure to the deal, the cartel kidnaps O.  All hell breaks loose, and throw in loose canon DEA man Dennis (John Travolta), and you've got the ingredients for a messy, nasty stew of a film.

But, Stone never raises the heat or makes the film boil.  His leads are both lacking charisma and acting chops, and they have to carry the movie.  And they can't.  Some of the narration is insipid (and was in Don Winslow's novel), but in addition to that, Stone struggles to tie any of the scenes together or to sustain emotion.  He telegraphs revelations clumsily, and unwisely, he spends too much time on his young leads instead of his veterans.  I would have liked to have seen more of Hayek, Del Toro, and Travolta behaving badly, especially.  Del Toro is just so interesting, and I wish he had been given more to do.  There seems to have been more with Hayek's character, but that too is dropped.  There seems to be an attempt to criticize US drug enforcement policy and throw in some politically relevant material.  Nothing works.  It's not smart; it's not fun.  Stone is a smarter filmmaker than this and certainly a more stylish one.

I expect more.  Check out the movie poster below, and tell me if it isn't promising something exhilarating.

Go back through Oliver Stone's impressive catalogue.  And watch one of those films instead.

Les Miserables: C'est magnifique!

Movie Review: Les Miserables

Director: Tom Hooper

Reviewed: 21 December 2012

jamesintexas rating--***1/2

Wow.  Tom Hooper's sensational film version of the beloved musical "Les Miserables" comes close to cinematic greatness, offering a thrilling story with few frills.  Hooper relies upon his strong cast to shoulder the weight of the story instead of using cinematic pyrotechnics or CGI.  He trains his camera confidently on his actors, and it is enough.  "Les Miserables" is one of the best films of the year and an event of the season.

Jean Valjean (Hugh Jackman) served nineteen years in a French prison for stealing a loaf of bread and breaks parole leading to his pursuit by the indefatigable Inspector Javert (Russell Crowe).  In a new life, Valjean's carelessness leads to the destruction of the young Fantine (Anne Hathaway), a factory worker scrimping to send money to her beloved daughter Cosette.  Young Cosette lives with the reprehensible Thenardiers (Sacha Baron Cohen and Helena Bonham Carter) before a decision by Valjean changes her life.  Time passes, and the plot centers upon a burgeoning insurrection in Paris involving young Marius (Eddie Redmayne) and the daughter of the Thenardiers, Eponine (Samantha Barks).  With love and revolution in the air, Valjean must evade his past and protect Cosette (Amanda Seyfried).

Hooper's direction focuses on the faces of the lead characters, and he delivers long, uninterrupted takes of the singing which I feel is to his credit.  He does not chop or edit this film into fragments.  Having only seen the musical once (this past fall in Houston), I sat in the back of the theater, enjoying the scale of the cast and songs, but I never got the sense of the faces of the actors that would come from sitting in a front row seat.  And, who can afford that?  Well, for the price of admission to this film, Hooper puts his stars out in front, scaling down the film from gigantic sets and props.  He makes "Les Miserables" a film of faces and emotions, rendered beautifully by Jackman, Hathaway, and Barks particularly.  With this film and his previous "The King's Speech," Hooper has emerged as an actor's director, putting the best in front of his camera and letting them act.  That film earned Colin Firth a Best Actor Oscar and Helena Bonham Carter and Geoffrey Rush supporting acting nominations.  His strengths are at play here with actors ready for the challenge.

"Les Miserables" examines the reclamation of one man's soul, the role of faith in a person's life.  A kindness delivered upon Valjean early in the film manifests itself in two major decisions that he makes later.  Without being clumsy, "Les Miserables" offers up its treatise on the importance of liberty, equality, and brotherhood unabashedly within the framing of faith.  I feel that it is Hugh Jackman's best work ever as he proves himself fully capable, both strong and vulnerable, as Valjean.  Anne Hathaway's brief work as Fantine is memorable, and her signature song "I Dreamed a Dream" stops the film in its tracks with its impressive holding of her face as she delivers a wounded, defiant vocal.  Both Jackman and Hathaway are deserving of nominations for acting.  Sacha Baron Cohen and Helena Bonham Carter delight as the Innkeeper and his wife, and "Master of the House" delivers comedic gold.  Both do really brilliant work here, adding levity and humor to a dark story, as well as a flurry of comic sequences to disrupt the staid pace of the film.  I do wish there were an Oscar for Best Comedic Duo; I would hand it to them.

"Les Miserables" feels a bit long, and I felt at times that I admired it more than loved it.  From a technical standpoint, the film feels, looks, and sounds terrific.  I found myself less enthusiastic about Russell Crowe's performance as Javert, but nearly everyone else delivers.  A film deserving of great praise and no doubt thick crowds this holiday season, "Les Miserables" will receive a slate of Oscar nominations and probably a Best Supporting Actress statue for Anne Hathaway who this year handled two iconic roles (Catwoman and Fantine) with dexterity.  "Les Miserables" is an admirable, technically brilliant film and a fantastic trip to the movies.

Superfluous Middle-Earth

Movie Review: The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey

Director: Peter Jackson

Reviewed: 23 December 2012

jamesintexas rating--**1/2

Breathe easy.  Peter Jackson has not ruined or marred his legacy like George Lucas did with the abominable prequels to the original "Star Wars" trilogy.  I compare Jackson's new film "The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey" to Steven Spielberg's misfire "Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull." That film was a weak shade of the original beloved character, its special effects dwarfed its story, and it played more like a sad attempt to recycle instead of push forward.

And that is where Peter Jackson is right now.

Here's where we left off in 2004.  Peter Jackson was king of the world, holding a Best Director Academy Award in one hand and a Best Picture statue in the other.  "King Kong" loomed on the horizon, and "The Lord of the Rings" was cemented in pop culture status as an equal to "Indiana Jones" or "Star Wars."  It became a series that I looked forward to re-watching and revisiting every winter break.

And now, here we are in 2012.  Peter Jackson has crafted "The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey" which is part one of a trilogy constructed out of the 300 page "enchanting prelude to 'The Lord of the Rings'" according to my edition.  Which means that Jackson is stretching source material (and audience's patience) as far as it will go.  Which means I'm on the hook for another Middle-Earth story for the winters of 2013 and 2014.    

"The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey" is the prelude to the trilogy, outlining how the ring was secured from Gollum and how a hobbit becomes a hero.  In short, Bilbo Baggins joins Gandalf The Grey on an adventure to the Lonely Mountain to help the dwarves recapture their homeland and a dungeon-full of gold from the unseen dragon Smaug.  There are Orcs and Goblins along the way, as well as mountains and waterfalls.  The usual.  Swooping camera work.  Chanting music.

As a teacher, the experience of watching this film feels like watching an honors student resubmit to you a slightly reworked paper from another class.  There's little originality, little freshness, little fun, and little newness in terms of ideas or format.  Jackson is capable of so much more, and here it feels more than ever like he is spinning his wheels, recycling his favorite moments from the original trilogy, and putting emotion on autopilot.  In structure it feels exactly like the first film: prologue, time in the Shire, traveling, then fights, a trip to the Elf-land, subterranean chases, cliffhanger ending rescue.  In terms of actors delivering emotion (or even just connecting with the audience), Jackson is not working with a strong cast of Elijah Wood, Sean Astin, Orlando Bloom, John Rhys-Davies, or Viggo Mortenson.  "The Hobbit's" cast is mostly forgettable with a brooding Richard Armitage as Thorin Oakenshield and an okay Martin Freeman as Bilbo Baggins (doing a mostly credible Ian Holm impersonation). The dwarves, meant to provide comic relief, do little to distinguish themselves or endear us to them despite many, many scenes meant to warm the audiences to them.  Instead, I longed for Pippin and Merri's easy bouncy chemistry and sense of fun.  Sir Ian McKellen seems older and more tired (both of which must be true), and his Gandalf is not close to the Oscar-nominated performance he gave in the original film in 2001.  He now speaks in clumsy aphorisms and disappears only to reappear to save the day.  Howard Shore's iconic score hits familiar notes but carries none of the grandeur or sweep of the original and adds nothing memorable.  When Jackson employs a helicopter tracking shot of the party walking over a New Zealand mountain, it's stunning and beautiful and it's impossible to forget that it's been done before.  Better.

Guillermo Del Toro's name is on this film in some capacity, and I sincerely wish that Jackson had been able to hand the reigns off to him or another hungry filmmaker with a fresh vision.  Del Toro's signature style in films like "Pan's Labyrinth" and "Hellboy" was a tactile quality, a use of costume, make-up, and sound that can exhilarate and terrify.  I really would have liked to have seen his Middle-Earth with its ghouls and trolls, its Necromancer and dragons.

And, I'm not holding Jackson's decision to make this film the first of three against him.  A good film is a good film, but it is difficult to know that this story, which can only seem slight compared to the trilogy, is being given more time and equal weight to the original.  Scenes with Gollum (Andy Serkis) are fine, but nowhere near the electric power of "The Two Towers."  Scenes with Gandalf seem clunky, move even more slowly.  Hobbiton is less charming; the woods and forest less grand.  There is a bizarre character with a sleigh pulled by jack-rabbits.  There are an inordinate number of trolls who are terrible at fighting and never seem to injure the dwarves.

Don't get me wrong.  It is nice to see Ian McKellen, Ian Holm, Cate Blanchett, and Hugo Weaving, among others.  There are one or two potentially scary moments, one involving spiders (friends of Shelob?)  It's nice to return to Middle-Earth.  But if the return is not going to build upon the legacy of the original films or add a fresh wrinkle or take on it, then count me out.  I'd rather watch the originals and be enthralled with them instead of watching "The Hobbit" and be constantly, slightly disappointed.

So much money, effort, and time went into these films.  I wish that there were more energy, fire, passion, and daring in the filmmaking.  This is a film project that cost over $180,000,000.  If you're not willing to be daring and bold after winning the Oscar for Best Director and crafting one of the best trilogies of all-time, then when will you do it?  Perhaps it is time for Peter Jackson to depart Middle-Earth?

Best Visual Effects, yes, but who is Pi?

Movie Review: Life of Pi (3D)

Director: Ang Lee

Reviewed: 2 December 2012

jamesintexas rating--***

Ang Lee is a tremendous directorial talent, and both "Brokeback Mountain" and "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon" made my short list for the top ten films of the last decade, so a new film from him is an event. Despite the occasional misfire (I'm looking at you, "Hulk"), Lee directs with a visual style that includes a love of manners and grace, motion and place, a strong color palette, and he always seems to elicit strong performances from fine actors like Heath Ledger, Emma Thompson, and others.  He has won the Academy Award for Best Director, and I will always watch his films.  His most recent film "Life of Pi" is more of a technological wonder than a living, breathing film, but I admire the work that Lee does here to render the world of the young Pi Patel (Suraj Sharma), an Indian boy who grew up in a zoo and survives a sinking freighter ship (a terrifying storm) that wipes out everything and everyone he knows.  Pi finds himself cast away on a life boat alongside a hyena, an orangutan, a wounded zebra, and a ferocious Bengal tiger named Richard Parker.  More, I will not say.  Lee fully employs the 3D effects in an almost painterly fashion, using them not to throw things at the audience or make us duck.  Instead, Lee places the life boat swimming as if in a seaof stars, making it appear that Pi is floating in the sky more than the ocean.  Whales dance with translucent colors, and fish fly.  Lee changes perspective at moments, taking us inside a tiger's eyes and then inside of a fish's eyes, swirling through the ocean with its colors and lights.  At one moment a painting literally comes alive with images spiraling and turning every direction.  To frame the story, the journey of survival becomes a tale told by the older Pi (Irrfan Khan) to a young man interested in both faith and being a writer, a set-up that I was not totally convinced was needed.

"Life of Pi" is engineered best for the 3D experience, and there are more than five jaw-dropping sequences that seem assured to win this film an Oscar for Best Visual Effects.  The tiger itself is a triumph of digital creation, and there are sequences that are on par with "2001" and "Tree of Life" for their majesty and beauty.  Lee lovingly captures the underwater world and the world of the stars, forging a cinematic magical realism with colors and images rarely ever depicted on film.  Those sequences are what I will remember from this film.

Despite being engaged in the story and the technological marvel of it (Lee paints so much in CGI that nothing really stands out and seems inauthentic; he's blended things so well that there are no lines), I left "Life of Pi" feeling both a distance and a coldness.  I like the fact that despite some difficult, violent imagery (ship sinking, animals being animals), the film is suitable for all ages.  The lead performance by Suraj Sharma is fine, though the narration started to grate on me a bit.  I wonder if this film needed the outside narration or the framing device at all.  Probably yes, because it brings the audience into Pi's mind, and besides the tiger, there is really no other reason for him to talk at all.  He doesn't have a device like Wilson the volleyball.

However, what if Ang Lee had allowed himself to tell the story more by using imagery instead of words?  What if he allowed sequences to go on without narration for ten, twenty, or thirty minutes?  He could have pushed the limits of what an American audience would see in terms of purely visual filmmaking.  Lee wisely drops the framing device midway through the film in order to not interrupt the focus as the survival story builds in its intensity.  However, I would argue that the framing device doesn't add an emotional clarity to the story, and the ending does not really work.  In general, I think "Life of Pi" is an interesting story, but the framing devices and the ending (of both the book and the movie) failed to bring me resolution.  The story seems at times to be trying to tell us that it is about telling people good-bye.  It also examines what a person is capable of doing under extreme stress.  Is the film an advocate of faith or belief in religion because it is simply the better story?  Is there something about this Job-like struggle that is unique to Pi or his tri-religious philosophy?  Are the stories that we tell ourselves the lifelines which can keep us alive?

I'm just not sure.  I'm not sure the storytelling always matches the visual flair and wonder.  I'm not sure that the film's examination of religion and faith reaches any sort of depth.  But I'm sure of this.  You should see "Life of Pi" on the big screen with 3D.  I agree with fellow critics that this film is a great example of the power of 3D filmmaking if put in the right hands.  Ang Lee's hands are the right hands.