movie gourmet

Seven Psychopaths: just not the sum of its parts

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Upon leaving the theater, The Wife asked the revelatory question: “How come it wasn’t as good as its parts?”.  True, Seven Psychopaths is well-acted by a very deep team of my favorite actors and is embedded with belly laughs, but, as a whole, it’s just not that satisfying.

Colin Farrell plays an alcoholic writer struggling to get past the title of his new screenplay. He expertly plays the straight man against an assortment of raging oddballs.  Sam Rockwell is brilliant as the writer’s not-a-good-influence friend who, underneath a shiftless exterior, is profoundly psychopathic. Christopher Walken hits another home run as a dignified eccentric. And Woody Harrelson plays a pedal-to-the-metal raging psycho crime boss as only he can.

The supporting cast includes the immortal Harry Dean Stanton, Abbie Cornish, Gabourey Sidibe (Precious), Michael Pitt (The Dreamers, Boardwalk Empire), Michael Stuhlbarg (A Serious Man), Olga Kuylenko and the always reliable Zeljko Ivanek.   The best performances are by Tom Waits (as a bunny-petting retired serial killer) and Linda Bright Clay (as Walken’s tough-as-nails wife).

But the story isn’t tight enough.  Writer-director Martin McDonagh (In Bruges) (who doesn’t admire Quentin Tarantino) here only delivers Tarantino Lite.  Instead, I recommend McDonagh’s brilliant In Bruges (and The Guard which McDonagh produced).  For those who like dark, dark comedy with lots of violence, Seven Psychopaths is entertaining.  For everyone else, nothing special.

DVD of the Week: Moonrise Kingdom

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In the wistfully sweet and visually singular Moonrise Kingdom, two 1965 twelve-year-olds fall into profound platonic love and run away together, with a cadre of sadly weary adult authority figures in comic pursuit.  Director Wes Anderson has had some quirky hits (Bottle Rocket, Rushmore) and some quirky misses (The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou), but he’s always original.  This is a hit.

While very funny, the story is deeply sympathetic to the children.  As Andrew O’Hehir of Salon.com put it,

Yes, Anderson’s principal subject, and arguably his only subject, is the collision between the emotional lives of adults and children and the paradoxical tragicomedy it can so often produce. But if Anderson’s adults yearn for the comparative simplicity of childhood while his children long for the big, important feelings they believe (wrongly) go with growing up, that in itself is a distinctly adult perspective.

We know that we’re watching something unique from the very first shot, in which the camera swivels to show each room in a home as family members enter their spaces and define their relationships to each other.  As The Wife, pointed out, we look into the family home as would a child looking into a dollhouse.

In a year that is especially rich with able child film actors, the kids here (Jared Gilman and Kara Hayman) are excellent.  Bruce Willis, Ed Norton, Bill Murray and Frances McDormand are also very good as the sad, burnt-out adults.  Tilda Swinton and Harvey Keitel show up briefly in broad comic roles.

Since Moonrise Kingdom is set in 1965, Baby Boomers will appreciate the Mad Men moments –  a portable record player,  a coonskin cap and adult indifference to a kid simultaneously holding lighter fluid and a flaming torch.  The girl’s books have cover art typical of the era’s quality young fiction (a la A Wrinkle in Time).

This is an excellent movie – and one that you haven’t seen before.

Movies to See Right Now

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Bruce Willis and Joseph Gordon-Levitt in LOOPER

As I wrote on Wednesday, I’m eagerly anticipating today’s release of Seven Psychopaths and Argo.   The best of the movies already in release is End of Watch, a thrilling cop movie that rises above the genre. I also liked the thinking person’s sci fi movie, Looper.   Perks of Being a Wallflower is an authentic coming of age story.

The inventive Sleepwalk With Me and Robot and Frank.are two excellent comedies that you haven’t seen before. Although there isn’t an unpredictable moment in Trouble with the Curve, it charmed me with its fine acting and baseball nostalgia. The Master is a visual and acting masterpiece, but the story fizzles out. The indie comedy Liberal Arts has some good moments, but overall rings hollow.

It’s worth seeking out the compelling documentary Searching for Sugar Man, about the hunt to uncover the secret fate of an artist that didn’t know that he was a rock star.

The stylishly violent crime drama Lawless is well-made and well-acted but predictable. The bike messenger thriller Premium Rush is nothing more than a chase scene, but it’s a cool chase. The Dark Night Rises is too corny and too long, but Anne Hathaway sparkles. The Words is a corny drama that insults the audience by over-explaining everything.

I haven’t yet seen the big Hollywood thriller Argo or the dark crime comedy Seven Psychopaths, which open this weekend.  You can read descriptions and view trailers of upcoming films at Movies I’m Looking Forward To.

My DVD pick this week is the gripping drama Detachment, a nightmare for teachers with Adrien Brody’s best performance since winning an Oscar for The Pianist.  Detachment is on my list of Best Movies of 2012 – So Far.

Two big new movies this weekend

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You can read descriptions and watch trailers of upcoming new movies on my Movies I’m Looking Forward To page, including this week’s two big releases, Argo and Seven Psychopaths.

I know that I’m gonna love Seven Psychopaths (which I’ve already been shilling).

Argo was wildly popular at the Toronto International Film Fest, and Roger Ebert tweeted that it is likely to win the Best Picture Oscar.  Ben Affleck directs and stars in this true story from the Iran Hostage Crisis: a down-on-his-luck spy rescues five Americans hiding in the Canadian Ambassador’s Tehran home by pretending to make a Hollywood sci fi movie.  The trailer emphasizes the thriller aspect, but I understand that the movie industry guys played by John Goodman and Alan Arkin are very funny.  There’s also a Who’s Who of high quality supporting actors:  Bryan Cranston, Philip Baker Hall, Richard Kind, Michael Parks, Clea DuVall, Adam Arkin, Chris Messina and Victor Garber (plus Adrienne Barbeau).  Here’s the trailer.

DVD of the Week: Detachment

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My DVD pick this week is the gripping drama Detachment, with Adrien Brody’s best performance since winning an Oscar for The Pianist.  Detachment is on my list of Best Movies of 2012 – So Far.

Detachment is a gripping drama about the failure of American public schools from the teachers’ point of view.   Adrien Brody plays a long-term sub on a 60-day assignment at a high school that has burned out virtually every other teacher.  I can’t use the words  “grim” or “bleak” to describe this school environment – it’s downright hellish.    It’s making their very souls decay.

The students are rebellious and disrespectful, and somehow manage to be zealously apathetic.  No parents support the teachers, but some enthusiastically abuse and undermine them.  Administrators demand better test results but offer little support beyond “flavor of the month” educational fads.   The ills of the high school in Detachment are exaggerated – this is not a documentary – but there isn’t an urban public high school in American that hasn’t endured some elements of Detachment.

Brody won an Oscar for 2002’s The Pianist, and, in Detachment, he makes the most of his best role since.  Brody plays a haunted and damaged man with strong core beliefs, who, faced with a menu of almost hopeless choices, picks his battles.

Detachment’s cast is unusually deep, and the performances are outstanding.   James Caan is particularly outstanding as the veteran educator whose wicked sense of humor can still disarm the most obnoxiously insolent teen.  Christina Hendricks (Mad Men) is excellent as the young teacher hanging on to some idealism.  Blythe Danner and William Petersen (CSI) are the veterans who have seen it all.  Lucy Liu plays the educator who is clinging by her fingerprints, trying not to flame out like the basket case played by Tim Blake Nelson.  Marcia Gay Harden and Isiah Whitlock Jr. (Cedar Rapids) are dueling administrators.  Sami Gayle and Betty Kaye are superb as two troubled kids.  Louis Zorich delivers a fine performance as Brody’s failing grandfather.  There’s just not an ordinary performance in the movie.

For all its despair, Detachment doesn’t let the audience sink into a malaise.  Director Tony Kaye (American History X) keeps thing moving, and his choices in structure and pacing work well.  This is an intense film with a dark viewpoint.  It is also a very ambitious, thoughtful and originally crafted movie – one well worth seeing.

Movies to See Right Now

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END OF WATCH

I recommend End of Watch, a thrilling cop movie that rises above the genre. I also liked the thinking person’s sci fi movie, Looper.  Perks of Being a Wallflower is an authentic coming of age story.

The inventive Sleepwalk With Me and Robot and Frank.are two excellent comedies that you haven’t seen before. Although there isn’t an unpredictable moment in Trouble with the Curve, it charmed me with its fine acting and baseball nostalgia. The Master is a visual and acting masterpiece, but the story fizzles out.  The indie comedy Liberal Arts has some good moments, but overall rings hollow.

It’s worth seeking out the compelling documentary Searching for Sugar Man, about the hunt to uncover the secret fate of an artist that didn’t know that he was a rock star.

The stylishly violent crime drama Lawless is well-made and well-acted but predictable. The bike messenger thriller Premium Rush is nothing more than a chase scene, but it’s a cool chase. The Dark Night Rises is too corny and too long, but Anne Hathaway sparkles. The Words is a corny drama that insults the audience by over-explaining everything.

You can read descriptions and view trailers of upcoming films at Movies I’m Looking Forward To.

My DVD pick this week is the story of aged Brits seeking a low-budget retirement in India, The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel. It is much more than a fish-out-of-water comedy, and has deservedly become they year’s biggest indie hit.

Looper: thinking person’s sci fi

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I liked Looper because it’s old school sci fi – based on an idea, in this case, what happens if humans learn how to time travel?  I think that much of the sci fi in that past thirty years hasn’t been idea-based, but more an excuse to clothe a monster movie or an action movie in cool-looking sci fi settings.  The credit here goes to writer-director Rian Johnson who has imagined a 2044 in which the richest 10% (including organized criminals) live pretty well, but the rest of us vie for scraps in decayed cities that haven’t seen any investment since maybe 2012.  In Johnson’s foul future, time travel is discovered, but by 2074, is used by criminals to dispose of their victims back in 2044.

In Looper, 2044 hit man Joseph Gordon-Levitt is confronted with the 2074 version of himself, played by Bruce Willis.  Willis is on a mission to do something in 2044 that will change an outcome in 2074.  The mission is shocking – would you murder a child to prevent him from growing up to become a Hitler-like monster?

In a year with many excellent performances by child actors, Pierce Gagnon plays one compellingly terrifying four-year-old.   As a bonus, one of my favorite character actors, Garret Dillahunt (No Country for Old Men, Assassination of Jesse James, Winter’s Bone) has a nice turn near the end of the movie.

As Looper climaxes, the audience needs to think along – if history is altered, how will the dominoes fall?

The Perks of Being a Wallflower: authenticity in a coming of age story

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In a fine movie debut, Stephen Chbosky directs the screen version of his novel.  A shy high school freshman in 1991 is adopted by two unapologetically misfit seniors, played by Harry Potter’s Emma Watson and Ezra Miller (very different here than in We Need to Talk About Kevin).  The Perks of Being a Wallflower is a coming of age story, and a very good one. We’ve all experienced adolescence, so my test for a film in this genre is whether the moments of adolescent awkwardness, peer obsession, self-doubt and discovery feel real.  I felt that authenticity with Perks.  In addition, the story is textured and unpredictable, and the performances – especially those by Watson and Miller –  are excellent.

Liberal Arts: promising, but hollow

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I liked so much about Liberal Arts that I wondered why I felt so unsatisfied leaving the theater. I finally realized that the central character just didn’t work for me, making an otherwise good movie into a hollow one.

Liberal Arts is written and directed by TV sitcom star Josh Radnor, who also plays the lead character, Jesse, a college admissions officer in NYC.  Jesse is now 35 and adrift.  He returns to his old college to speak at the retirement of his favorite professor, falls back in love with college life and meets a spirited 19-year-old coed.  As Jesse examines where he is in his life, he is book ended by his world weary professors and by the naive young students that he meets.

That’s a promising premise and the very well written supporting characters provide some funny and thoughtful moments.  Richard Jenkins is brilliant as a man grappling with the end of his career, and Alison Janney has some delicious moments as a very tough broad whose expertise is Romantic literature.  Elizabeth Olsen is very good as the coed, and Zac Efron is downright hilarious as a college age stoner dude.

But it comes down to a main character that has it pretty good, but resists acting like a grownup.  He doesn’t get credit from me for figuring it out at least thirteen years too late.  The movie wants to give him credit for that, and for a “noble” decision that is implausible.

The Wife liked it, though.

Herzog’s most American documentary: God’s Angry Man

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Dr. Gene Scott

I am a huge fan of Werner Herzog’s documentaries (Grizzly Man, Little Dieter Needs to Fly, Cave of Forgotten Dreams).  So I was particularly pleased to come across this 1980 Herzog gem.  It’s a 43 minute made-for-TV documentary called God’s Angry Man.

God’s Angry Man is about the late Dr. Gene Scott, a TV preacher who would rail at his audience until they sent him money.  You would think that people would turn off a television personality who was hectoring them, but Scott tapped into something spooky within his flock.  He was mesmerizing.  I myself watched him for many hours late at night, amazed that his followers would tune in to his hard-edged bellowing and choose to be bullied.

Herzog plays it straight and lets Scott speak for Scott, although Herzog must have been puzzled and bemused by the American phenomenon of the TV preacher.

You can watch the entire movie at this slightly creepy Dr. Gene Scott fan page or here on Google Videos.