Ray Harryhausen with one of his sword-fighting skeletons from JASON AND THE ARGONAUTS
Ray Harryhausen, who died today at age 92, was a unique genius of movie special effects. His stop-motion animation created the vivid creatures that made possible movies about ancient mythology (from the 1958 The 7th Voyage of Sinbad through the 1981 Clash of the Titans) and fantasy literature (The Three Worlds of Gulliver). His pioneering work in stop-motion animation has influenced the field since, all the way to today’s Aardman Animation and Wallace and Gromit.
Harryhausen’s masterpiece was the 1963 Jason and the Argonauts, for which he created the Harpies, Talos, the Clashing Rocks Triton, the Hydra and the sword-fighting skeletons that emerge from the Hydra’s teeth. I still watch Jason and the Argonauts whenever it’s on TV, and I often give the DVD to kids. Thank you, Harry.
I am celebrating Mud this week by recommending writer-director Jeff Nichols’ Shotgun Stories. Nichols followed Shotgun Stories with Take Shelter and now Mud, which together constitute his “Arkansas Trilogy”. Shotgun Stories was also the breakout film for Nichols’ favorite leading man, Michael Shannon, who has since gone on to Boardwalk Empire, next week’s The Ice Man and the upcoming blockbuster Man of Steel.
Shotgun Stories opens with three brothers finding about the death of their no good father. He had abandoned them and their mother in poverty – and was such an indifferent father that he named his children Son, Boy and Kid. After walking away from his family, he found religion and started another, more prosperous, family with another set of three sons. The three older sons crash the funeral to express their bitterness, and it becomes clear that the two sets of brothers are headed for a clash.
Shannon plays the oldest brother, who has been forged into stony strength and determination by deprivation and long-smoldering resentment. Nichols uses that resentment to light a fuse that burns fitfully but inexorably for most of Shotgun Stories’ 92 minutes.
Shotgun Stories ranked #7 on my Best Movies of 2007. Shotgun Stories is available on DVD from Netflix and streaming from Netflix and iTunes.
At Any Price is – at long last – a movie about today’s Farm Belt that farmers will recognize. American cinema has been romanticizing the small family farm for at least a quarter century since, to survive, US farmers have moved on to industrial scale agribusiness (with all its tradeoffs). The corporate farmer at the center of At Any Price is Henry Whipple (Dennis Quaid). Henry is a driven man, consumed by a need to have the biggest farm and to sell the most genetically modified corn seeds in southern Iowa. Henry is also stupendously selfish, utterly tone-deaf to the needs of anyone else.
Despite Henry’s dream to hand the business to one of his two sons, they despise him. The older son has avoided conflict by escaping to a vagabond life in international mountain climbing. The younger son, Dean (Zac Efron), plans his escape as a NASCAR driver and seems well on his path. Stuck on the farm for now, he can barely tolerate his father’s incessant grasping. But he’s small town royalty, he’s got a pretty girlfriend (Maika Monroe) and he’s as good-looking as Zac Efron, so life isn’t unbearable.
But Henry’s smug perch on top of the haystack is not as impregnable as it would seem. Along the way, he has cut some corners and stepped on other people, and it catches up to him. Henry’s empire threatens to topple, Dean clutches at his big career chance, and the two men – each and together – must react to developments that they never saw coming. Writer-director Ramin Bahrani spins a deeply authentic psychological drama as each man is forced into some uncomfortable self-examination.
It’s interesting that such a realistic exploration of New Agriculture in Middle America comes from Bahrani. Himself North Carolina-born, he has used nonprofessional actors to make three brilliant movies about struggling immigrants in America: Chop Shop, Man Push Cart and Goodbye, Solo. Goodbye, Solo was #5 on my list of Best Movies of 2009. Here’s a recent interview with Bahrani in the New York Times touching on At Any Price.
One of Bahrani’s insights is that the impacts of today’s capitalism aren’t necessarily from the malevolently rapacious (like Henry F. Potter in It’s a Wonderful Life), but from the indifference of the selfish. With almost every step that he takes, Henry Whipple screws other folks, but he’s convinced himself that he’s a prince of a guy.
At Any Price is a showcase for Quaid and Efron. Quaid’s portrayal of Henry is brilliantly textured, projecting a self-righteous bluster which barely masks the desperation threatening to erupt through his pores. And I’ve come to always look forward to seeing Efron, who, in Me and Orson Welles,The Paperboy and Liberal Arts, has proven that he is more than just the pretty boy of High School Musical.
Bahrani’s actors have taken full advantage of his screenplay. The character of Dean’s girlfriend is especially well-written. Beginning as a simple teen from a broken family looking for some fun, her journey takes several surprising turns. The actress Maika Monroe pulls it off with a memorable performance. In many ways, the story is anchored by Kim Dickens (Deadwood, Treme) as Henry’s wife and Zac’s mom, resolutely dragging her men out of their self-created sinkholes. Veteran character actor Clancy Brown (the guy has 209 acting credits on IMDb) is superb as Henry’s chief rival.
We are left with two men who finally must appreciate who they really are, whether we like them or whether they like themselves. After seeing At Any Price, I didn’t leave the theater thrilled, but that’s probably because a brilliant examination of two ambiguous men is more thought-provoking than stirring. And there’s nothing wrong with that.
Director Mira Nair (Mississippi Masala, Monsoon Wedding, The Namesake) brings the novel The Reluctant Fundamentalist to the screen. A young Pakistani man flourishes at Princeton and on Wall Street, and he becomes an American Master of the Universe. But then September 11 changes his world, as Americans reacting and overreacting to terror start treating him badly. Suddenly, he no longer sees a fit with his American girlfriend, a flighty, overprivileged artist. He returns to Pakistan to teach in a university, and becomes an intellectual leader for Pakistanis seeking to resist the West. The movie becomes a thriller when the question arises, has he become a terrorist?
The thriller works – if you haven’t read the novel, you don’t know whether the guy we’ve been rooting for is or is not a terrorist until the final minutes. The best thing about the movie is the remarkably intense performance of British actor Riz Ahmed as the protagonist. Ahmed is a compelling screen presence, and he clearly has impressive acting range when you contrast his hyper-alert role here with the dim terrorist he played in the hilarious terrorist parody Four Lions. As one would expect, Liev Schreiber is also excellent as the guy who must determine whether Ahmed has become a terrorist.
What didn’t work for me? First there was the odd choice of Kate Hudson as the girlfriend. The character is just too vapid to captivate a Wall Street whiz kid, and Hudson just doesn’t project the sensuality to make up the difference for a guy in his early 20s.
The story also suggests that non-violent, democratic nationalism can have widespread appeal in Pakistan, and, while I would hope that Pakistanis embrace that path, I’m not sure that it’s a likely outcome.
If you need a sermon on the blowback from our War on Terror, then you can sit in the pew for The Reluctant Fundamentalist. But, for an ambiguous thriller, Homeland is a better choice.
Takeshi Kitano dares a Yakuza to shoot him in OUTRAGE BEYOND
Takeshi Kitano returns to star in the Japanese gangster movie Outrage Beyond. It’s a sequel to writer-director Kitano’s 2011 Outrage, of which I wrote:
If you’re looking for a hardass gangster movie with deliciously bad people doing acts of extreme violence upon each other, Outrage is the film for you. But what makes Outrage stand out is the pace and stylishness of all the nastiness, as if Quentin Tarantino had made Goodfellas (only without all the extra dialogue about foot rubs and the Royale with cheese)…Kitano, much like Charles Bronson, has the worn and rough face of a man who has seen too much disappointment and brutality.
Outrage was more of a tragic noir, because you know that most of the characters probably won’t survive – and they know it, too. There is less foreboding in Outrage Beyond, which is just glorious exploitation – gangster mayhem splattering the streets. Because this is a Yakuza film, Kitano delivers the minimum one full body tattoo and one severed finger. But he also makes ingeniously lethal use of a pitching machine in a batting cage, and “Let’s play baseball” is the cruelest line in the film.
I saw Outrage Beyond at the San Francisco International Film Festival.
Go see the gripping and thoughtful Mud. Two Arkansas boys embark on a secret adventure with a man hiding from the authorities, and they learn more than they expected about love and loyalty. Mud is one of the best movies of 2013.
Best bets in theaters this week:
If you see the thought-provoking drama The Place Beyond the Pines with Ryan Gosling and Bradley Cooper, you’ll still be mulling it over days later;
I guarantee that you will enjoy the absolutely winning The Sapphires, a charmer about Australian Aboriginal teens forming a girl group to entertain troops in the Vietnam War.
Don’t overlook the heartwarming British indie The Angel’s Share about a hard luck guy’s struggle to turn his life around with unexpected help from some ultra-rare Scotch whisky.
The compelling documentary The Central Park Five from Ken Burns, et al, is available streaming from Amazon Instant and other VOD providers. Football fans should tune into ESPN’s 30 for 30 for Elway to Marino, an inside look at several astonishing stories from the 1983 NFL draft.
There are two big releases this weekend: The Reluctant Fundamentalist and At Any Price. You can read descriptions and view trailers of upcoming films atMovies I’m Looking Forward To.
My DVD/Stream of the Week is Flight, starring Denzel Washington as an airline pilot who becomes a hero after saving his passengers in a miraculous crash landing, but then risks legal jeopardy unless he can get his drinking under control. Flight is available on DVD from Netflix and Redbox and streaming from many VOD outlets.
In the brilliant drama Mud, two Arkansas boys venture onto a river island and discover a man named Mud (Michael McConaughey) hiding from the authorities. Ellis (Tye Sheridan of The Tree of Life) is a hopeless romantic, consumed by an ideal view of love. His more hard-eyed buddy Neckbone (Jacob Lofland) is on the outlook for cool stuff. Both are ready for the excitement of a secret adventure.
Mud is another triumph for writer-director Jeff Nichols (Shotgun Stories, Take Shelter). The story has aspects of a boyhood adventure and of an escape thriller which hook the audience. But Mud is, at its heart, a coming of age story in which Ellis (primarily) gets a big dose of realism about love and human constancy.
Neckbone doesn’t have many illusions about human nature. His parents aren’t in the picture, and he lives with his wacky uncle Galen (Michael Shannon) in a trailer. Neckbone has a knack for immediately getting to the core of situation by bargaining an errand for a pistol or asking “Didja feel her titties?”.
A step down from Neckbone’s trailer lifestyle, Ellis lives on a floating shack tied to the riverbank. His parents are together, but, it seems, not for long. Somehow, Ellis believes in an ideal and forever love. There are many relationships for Ellis to observe: his parents’ troubled journey, the sacrifices Mud makes for his lover (Reese Witherspoon), the mysterious relationship between Mud and another houseboat dweller (Sam Shepherd), a rich man’s (Joe Don Baker) own obsession with his sons, his partnership with Neckbone and Ellis’ own first foray into dating. It’s all a bigger mouthful than Ellis was expecting.
The two kid actors are great. So are McConaughey, Shepherd, Witherspoon, Baker and Nichol’s favorite actor, Shannon. Mud primarily succeeds because Nichols has created compelling characters and woven a top-rate story, both gripping and thoughtful. Mud is one of the best movies of 2013.
ESPN’s fine documentary series 30 for 30 has produced another winner in Marino to Elway, an insider’s view of the 1983 NFL draft. That year, an astonishing six QBs were picked in the first round, including Hall of Famers John Elway, Dan Marino and Jim Kelly. That crop of QBs would lead the AFC Super Bowl teams in eleven of the next sixteen years. The impact to NFL history aside, the draft contained some forehead slapping individual stories:
Elway’s threat to play baseball for the New York Yankees if he were drafted by the Baltimore Colts;
five QBs getting drafted ahead of Marino, whose stock dropped because of inaccurate rumors of drug use;
Jim Kelly swearing that he would never play in Buffalo and jumping to the USFL’s Houston Gamblers;
Steeler first round pick Gabriel Rivera, an amazingly fast defensive tackle who paralyzed himself in a drunk driving accident after just 6 games in the NFL;
plus an assortment of draft busts and the machinations of NFL Commissioner Pete Rozelle and Raiders owner Al Davis.
Elway and Marino were represented by the same agent, Marvin Demoff, who kept a daily journal. That journal, plus interviews with Demoff, Elway and Marino, is the core of the movie. But there are also interviews with Colts General Manager Ernie Accorsi, and first-rounders Rivera, Ken O’Brien, Todd Blackledge, Chris Hinton and Jimbo Covert.
It was a great story in 1983, and Elway to Marino fills in the blanks with nugget after nugget. It’s a must see for NFL fans.
The Angel’s Share is an endearing tale of a hard luck guy’s life changing after a visit to a Scotch whisky distillery. Released back to hardscrabble Glasgow after doing prison time, a young man becomes a father and determines to change his life. As focused as he is, that wouldn’t be possible without the encouragement of the guy who leads his community service work crew and the prodding of his girlfriend. The odds are against him, but he gathers an oddball team from the work crew and devises an ingenious (and funny) heist.
The story begins with a clever court sentencing montage that only gradually settles our attention on the protagonist. This young man (Paul Brannigan) is terse and always potentially destructive, yet we root for him because of his single-minded commitment to acting on his good intentions. His potential is not apparent to any other characters (or to the audience for a long time). His mentor (John Henshaw) has seen it all, but isn’t so jaded as to write off every unemployed and unemployable ex-con; more complex than he seems, he lives a lonely life, sparked by a single hobby.
The movie’s accessible tone surprised me because militant British director Ken Loach is known for far grimmer socialist realist films; here, Loach’s filmmaking skills and his unvarnished depiction of Glasgow slums enhance his warm story and hopeful characters.
Fortunately, because the Glaswegian accent is very difficult for we Americans to follow, The Angel’s Share is subtitled. The Angel’s Share is a fun and heartwarming movie that a wide audience will enjoy.
On May 7, Turner Classic Movies is broadcasting three classics of film noir.
You really haven’t sampled film noir if you haven’t seen Out of the Past (1947). Perhaps the model of a film noir hero, Robert Mitchum plays a guy who is cynical, strong, smart and resourceful – but still a sap for the femme fatale…played by the irresistible Jane Greer. Greer later reported that she received this guidance from director Jacques Tourneur: “First half of the picture – good girl. Second half – bad girl.” Kirk Douglas plays The Bad Guy You Don’t Want to Mess With, emanating a mix of evil and power. With Out of the Past, Tourneur crafted one of the most dramatically lit and photographed noirs – not one puff of cigarette smoke goes uncelebrated.
THE ASPHALT JUNGLE
In The Asphalt Jungle (1950), the crooks assemble a team and pull off the big heist…and then things begin to go wrong. There aren’t many noirs with better casting – the crooks include Sterling Hayden, Louis Calhern, Sam Jaffe and James Whitmore. The 23-year-old Marilyn Monroe plays Calhern’s companion in her first real speaking part. How noir is it? Even the cop who breaks the case goes to jail. Directed by the great John Huston.
Every police procedural from 1948 through today’s Law and Order and CSI owes something to the prototypical The Naked City (1948). Tenacious New York City cops solve a murder amid gritty streets and shady characters. Unusual for the time, it was shot on location. Directed by noir great Jules Dassin, The Naked City won Oscars for black and white cinematography and film editing.
