Movies to See Right Now

by
Jude Law in SIDE EFFECTS

The best new movie is Steven Soderbergh’s psychological thriller Side Effects with Rooney Mara, Jude Law and Catherine Zeta-Jones.  In Stand Up Guys, Al Pacino, Christopher Walken and Alan Arkin play old mobsters gearing up for one last surge of adrenaline. Quartet is a pleasant lark of a geezer comedy with four fine performances. The charmingly funny Warm Bodies has made my list of Zombie Movies for People Who Don’t Like Zombie Movies. The pretty good horror movie Mama (with Jessica Chastain) can send chills down your spine without any slashing or splattering.

Zero Dark Thirty, Argo, Lincoln and Silver Linings Playbook are on my list of Best Movies of 2012 and all are nominated for the Best Picture Oscar. The French language drama Amour, also nominated for Best Picture, is a brilliantly made film about the end of life – it’s also an almost unbearable viewing experience.

If, like me, you worship the spaghetti Western, the Quentin Tarantino blockbuster Django Unchained is gloriously pedal-to-the-metal, splattering exploitation. The intelligent drama Rust and Bone is the singular tale of a complicated woman and an uncomplicated man. Ang Lee’s visually stunning fable Life of Pi is an enthralling commentary on story-telling.

Skip the unoriginal mob movie Gangster Squad, which wastes its fine cast. Also pass on the lavish but stupefying all-star Les Miserables, with its multiple endings, each more miserable than the last. The FDR movie Hyde Park on Hudson is a bore. The disaster movie The Impossible is only for audiences that enjoy watching suffering adults and children in peril. I have not seen Movie 43 – it is the most critically reviled movie in a looooong time.

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

My DVD of the week is the underrated 2012 thriller Deadfall.

Turner Classic Movies is celebrating the Oscars with its annual 31 Days of Oscars, filling its broadcast schedule with Academy Award-winning films. In the next week, the especially rich lineup will include Double Indemnity, A Place in the Sun, Seven Days in May, All the King’s Men, Anatomy of a Murder with its great jazz score, On the Waterfront, The Caine Mutiny, Easy Rider, The Last Detail, The Bridge on the River Kwai, Lawrence of Arabia and Tootsie.

Side Effects: a thriller for thriller-lovers

by

Side Effects is a psychological thriller that keeps thriller-lovers on the their toes by constantly changing its focus.  First one character is on the verge of falling apart, then another and then another.  Initially, we think that the story is about mental illness and prescription psych meds, but then it evolves into something else quite different.   The plot might have seemed implausible in the hands of a lesser director, but Steven Soderbergh pulls it off with panache.

Soderbergh got superb performances by his leads: Jude Law, Rooney Mara and Catherine Zeta-Jones.  Mara, so striking in The Social Network and The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, serves notice that she is a perfect fit for psychological dramas; she can turn  apparent fragility and unknowability into menace like few other film actresses.  And few actors can take a character from charming confidence to a desperate meltdown like Law does here.  Zeta-Jones shows that she play a frigid mistress of the universe who is passionate and needy underneath.  The supporting players are all perfectly cast.

The insistent music by Thomas Newman, while never obvious, is an integral part of the suspense.  Soderbergh, a master who has repeatedly elevated genre films, has another winner in Side Effects.

Interview: FUZZ TRACK CITY director Steve Hicks

by
FUZZ TRACK CITY

Here’s my interview with the writer-director of Fuzz Track City, Steve Hicks.

So many LA detective tales are set in art deco offices and Bel Air estates, but yours is set in the most ordinary neighborhoods and the seediest retail strips.  Why did you choose to feature the LA that movie audiences and tourists rarely see?

STEVE HICKS:  I live in the San Fernando Valley (area code 818) in Los Angeles County and I wanted to celebrate/exploit the valley’s locale.  Personally, I find so much solace and inspiration in The Valley and I wanted to add my cinematic two bits into the mix.  The Valley is a most wonderful place…come and see.

 

The movie’s MacGuffin is an obscure  B-side track – which you wrote yourself.  Tell me about writing the infectious lick for the rock song “Ricochet” and arranging it for the commercial jingles.

STEVE HICKS:  I’m a devout guitar god enthusiast; Jimmy Page, Jimi Hendrix, Eric Clapton, Eddie Van Halen…etc.  These artists transformed my life as an adolescent.  Truly.  I know riffs–I’ve researched and obsessed over guitar riffs note-for-note…However, as I discovered–I am not a natural guitar player.  I studied piano for many years when I was a kid, but that is the extent of my musical prowess…I wrote ‘Ricochet’ out of necessity when I could not find a guitarist that was willing to write riff after riff after riff for no money.  It should be noted, however, that I DID NOT perform the song, ‘Ricochet.’  I wrote what should be played, but it was performed with slick shredder excellence by NICK MAYBURY–a tried-and-true guitar master.

 

How did you select songs for the sound track?  It’s a remarkable compendium of pretty good but not popular rock songs.

STEVE HICKS:  I felt that the music in FUZZ TRACK CITY should be as a strong and prominent character as the protagonist…In the initial cuts of the film, I used tracks by Bob Seger, Led Zeppelin, Strawberry Alarm Clock–all the while knowing that one day I had to swap them out (for cost/licensing reasons–too much $$$).  However, two music libraries that I can’t say enough good things about (APERTURE MUSIC and DeWOLFE MUSIC) helped me find legitimate music tracks from the actual eras from their vaults to redo the film’s song soundtrack.  I was able to replace every ‘popular’ tune with songs from their libraries that–in almost every case–I liked better than my original choices.  And they could not have been more helpful or more “indie” friendly when it came to negotiate rates.  Thanks to APERTURE MUSIC and DeWOLFE MUSIC.

 

I think that people will note superficial similarities to THE BIG LEBOWSKI? Any thoughts?

STEVE HICKS:  I love ‘The Big Lebowski.’  And it definitely influenced me on some level.  When I was writing FUZZ TRACK CITY, I was drawn to a throwback and somewhat passive protagonist for whatever reason.  I certainly wasn’t trying to compete with the Coen Brothers.  Comparisons are inevitable, although I never intended to compete with The Dude.  Certainly not.  I just wanted to tell my own story in my own way.  FUZZ TRACK CITY abides…indeed.

 

Who decided that Josh Adell would spend the entire movie as Ziggy in his tidy whities? (I think you missed a product placement opportunity from Fruit of the Loom.)

STEVE HICKS:  The ‘undie concept’ was Josh’s…I’ve known Josh since we were 10 years old.  We met in sixth grade and bonded over our love for “Caddyshack” and “Stripes” and became inseparable friends. We were roommates at NYU for all four years–he was a drama major, I was in film.  I’ve made more projects with Josh than I can count.  I wrote the part of Ziggy specifically for him and he just ran with it.  He’s a very creative guy–kinda out there.  In a good way.  One night we went to discuss the role and he had only one thing to say: briefs.  Inherently, I understood.  And so it goes…

 

Is that you in the photo of the missing Mike Lockwood?

STEVE HICKS:  That is me, yes.  I was the cheapest and most accessible person to pose for the photo.  In fact, I took the photo myself…of myself.  And printed it, too.  Myself.  Low budget filmmaking at its most sincere.

 

What’s next for FUZZ TRACK CITY?  Will there be a wider release after the festival circuit?

STEVE HICKS:  We’ll know soon–working on all that.  I’ll will let you know!

 

What’s next for you?   Is there a new film project?

STEVE HICKS:  My next project is an adaptation of a memoir by author Peter Conners called GROWING UP DEAD.  It’s about a kid going through high school in the late 1980’s–coming of age by way of his love and passion for The Grateful Dead and their music/culture.  Fun, trippy stuff.  Further…

Fuzz Track City: I’ll have another Monte Cristo, please

by

In the darkly comic Fuzz Track City, writer-director Steve Hicks riffs on the conventions of the detective genre to celebrate the most offbeat sides of LA.  Our hero could be a hard-boiled detective if he were more alert.  But Murphy Dunn (Todd Robert Anderson) is preoccupied with the death of his partner and the end of his marriage, two numbing losses that stem from betrayals.   It takes all of his remaining energy to order his daily Monte Cristo sandwich at the diner.

Look elsewhere for Hollywood gloss.  As Dunn searches for the MacGuffin, the B-side of a failed rock band’s long lost 45, he never enters a Bel Air estate.  Instead, he pads about the most ordinary neighborhoods of Burbank and Arcadia.  His office isn’t in an art deco office building – it’s in a strip on the run down Lankershim Boulevard.  Dunn doesn’t drive down storied Mulholland Drive or Sunset Boulevard; his bliss is cruising Ventura Boulevard.

Dunn is a lovable loser, still wearing his high school hair and driving his high school beater.  He’s so inexpert with his fists and gun that he needs to get bailed out of a bad situation by his extremely pregnant ex-wife (Tarina Pouncy).  The ex-wife witheringly says “take off those sunglasses – they don’t make you look cool” (and she’s right).     When he becomes the last LA resident to get a cell phone, he treats it as if it were about to explode.

Along the way Dunn encounters a series of oddballs.  One is an agoraphobic vinyl record collector (Josh Adell) who “hasn’t left Burbank in seven years or his house in three” and who scampers about in his tidy whities.  Another is a trailer-dwelling former musician (Dave Florek) whose idea of hospitality is to offer a choice of variously colored mouthwashes.  Abby Miller (Ellen Mae in Justified) brings some kooky originality to the role of the sad sack waitress.  And then there’s the object of Dunn’s schoolboy crush – his high school guidance counselor (Dee Wallace).

As he toys with the tropes of detective fiction, filmmaker Hicks takes us on a leisurely journey through the San Fernando Valley that finally crescendos into an uproarious climax.  It’s a fun ride.

DVD of the Week: Deadfall

by

Deadfall is a solid thriller that flew under the radar during the holidays.  Eric Bana and Olivia Wilde are brother and sister running for the Canadian border after a casino heist.  They wreck their car and split up.  The brother sets off overland, leaving a trail of murderous carnage.   The local cops are on the alert, including the sheriff’s deputy daughter (Kate Mara).   Meanwhile,  a bad luck boxer (Charlie Hannum of Sons of Anarchy) is released from prison, impulsively commits another crime and is headed for his parents’ (Sissy Spacek and Kris Kristofferson) remote northern cabin.  The sister hitches a ride with the boxer.  Everybody converges at the boxer’s parents’ place for an extremely stressful Thanksgiving dinner.

An essential element of this thriller is that all of the families are dysfunctional.   The siblings have survived a hellish upbringing, from which the older brother has rescued his little sister; unfortunately, he has emerged as a psychopath himself and has infantilized the sister.  The relationship between the boxer and his father has been poisoned by a long-festering dispute.  The sheriff resents and belittles his bright and highly professional daughter while doting on her idiot brothers.

The core of the movie is the evolving relationship between Wilde’s sister and Hunnam’s boxer.  Neither knows that the other is on the lam.  She cynically seduces him because he is useful.  But then she starts to fall for him, and, by Thanksgiving dinner, her loyalties are uncertain.

Sissy Spacek is brilliant as the boxer’s mom, who must steer over the wreckage of the relationship between her son and her husband, and who must then serve a Thanksgiving dinner to a volatile killer who is holding a shotgun on the other guests.  She is a great actor, and she’s as good here as in any of her signature performances.

The cinematography, characters, acting and the directorial choices by Stefan Ruzowitzky are excellent.  What keeps Deadfall from being one of the year’s best is some trite, TV movie level dialogue along the way.  Still, it’s a good watch.

Note: This is NOT the 1993 Deadfall, with Nicholas Cage even more over-the-top than usual.

Warm Bodies: the zombie version of Romeo and Juliet meets Beauty and the Beast

by

Take the zombie version of Romeo and Juliet meets Beauty and the Beast and we have the charmingly funny Warm Bodies.  When marauding zombies corner some human teens, a hunky teen zombie is smitten by a saucy live girl (Teresa Palmer), saves her from his comrades and shambles her off to his lair.  After he saves her life a few times, she begins to look past his deadness.  But her people want to shoot him in the head, and his people want to feast on her organs, so there’s that.

Nicholas Hoult, all grown up from his role as the kid in About a Boy, plays the zombie.   Although he can only grunt to the zombies and live humans, the audience hears him narrating his thoughts.  It’s normal for any besotted guy to warn himself, “Don’t be creepy! Don’t be creepy!”, but it’s very funny when the guy is dead and looks dead.

Director Jonathan Levine’s (50/50) screenplay is adapted from Isaac Marion’s novel, and it hits all the right notes.  It’s the story of a really nice boy trying to get a girl to like him, and it’s just hard for her to get past the fact that he ate her boyfriend’s brains.

Rob Corddray is excellent as Hoult’s zombie best friend and, hey, John Malkovich is in this movie, too.  I’m going to include Warm Bodies in my upcoming list of Zombie Movies for People Who Don’t Like Zombie Movies.

Movies to See Right Now

by
THE KID WITH A BIKE

Okay, here we are, and I’m recommending a zombie movie and a horror film.   In the charmingly funny Warm Bodies, Rome and Juliet meets Beauty and the Beast in a zombie movie.  The pretty good horror movie Mama (with Jessica Chastain) can send chills down your spine without any slashing or splattering.  In Stand Up Guys, Al Pacino, Christopher Walken and Alan Arkin play old mobsters gearing up for one last surge of adrenaline.  Quartet is a pleasant lark of a geezer comedy with four fine performances.

The Oscar Nominated Short Films are in theaters only for another week.  Last night I saw the Live Action and Animated Shorts.  If you can see just one, I recommend the Live Action Shorts, especially Curfew.

Zero Dark Thirty, Argo, Lincoln and Silver Linings Playbook are on my list of Best Movies of 2012 and all are nominated for the Best Picture Oscar. The French language drama Amour, also nominated for Best Picture, is a brilliantly made film about the end of life – it’s also an almost unbearable viewing experience.

If, like me, you worship the spaghetti Western, the Quentin Tarantino blockbuster Django Unchained is gloriously pedal-to-the-metal, splattering exploitation. The intelligent drama Rust and Bone is the singular tale of a complicated woman and an uncomplicated man.  Ang Lee’s visually stunning fable Life of Pi is an enthralling commentary on story-telling.

Skip the unoriginal mob movie Gangster Squad, which wastes its fine cast. Also pass on the lavish but stupefying all star Les Miserables, with its multiple endings, each more miserable than the last. The FDR movie Hyde Park on Hudson is a bore. The disaster movie The Impossible is only for audiences that enjoy watching suffering adults and children in peril. I have not seen Movie 43 – it is the most critically reviled movie in a looooong time.

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

My DVD of the week is my pick for the very best film of 2012, The Kid with a Bike.

Turner Classic Movies is celebrating the Oscars with its annual 31 Days of Oscars, filling its broadcast schedule with Academy Award-winning films.  Don’t overlook the overlooked film noir thriller The Narrow Margin or the WW II spy thriller The Fallen Sparrow with John Garfield and a 22-year-old Maureen O’Hara.

DVD of the Week: The Best Movie of 2012

by

The Kid with a Bike is an extraordinary film that tells a riveting story of unconditional love.  It is emotionally powerful without being sentimental and is gripping without stunts and explosions.   The Kid with a Bike topped my list of Best Movies of 2012.  It’s out today on DVD – available from by Criterion Collection, no less.

A 12-year-old boy wants to find the father who dumped him at a children’s home, but meets a woman who becomes his de facto foster mom.  In the face of overwhelming evidence, the boy refuses to acknowledge the possibility that his father doesn’t want him.  He becomes angry, acts out and is poised to make life-ruining choices.  His one chance in life is the woman who is drawn to caring for him, but he could alienate her, too.

The writer-directors, the Belgian brothers Luc and Jean-Pierre Dardennes, are two of my favorite film makers (The Son, Rosetta).  Their gift is minimalistic filmmaking that addresses fundamental themes like love, loss, forgiveness and belonging.  To avoid sappiness, they set their stories in gritty industrial towns and employ vividly realistic characters.  As all their work, The Kid with a Bike is an unvarnished and utterly realistic looking film.  This helps them create a fable about absolute goodness and the saving of another human being and present it in a credible, unsentimental and immediate package.

The Dardennes are known for their success with untrained actors, and here Thomas Doret is excellent as the kid – energetic, longing and single-minded.  The Belgian-born French star Cecille De France (Hereafter, The Spanish Apartment) is wonderful as the foster mom – steadfast but unknowable.  The compelling actor Olivier Gourmet (The Son, Rosetta, Mesrine) briefly appears in a bit part.

Stand Up Guys: one more surge for three old masters

by

Stand Up Guys doesn’t really have much going for it except for Al Pacino, Christopher Walken and Alan Arkin playing old mobsters, but that’s enough for a good time at the movies.  The premise is that a gangster (Pacino) is released from prison after taking a 28-year fall for his colleagues.  He is picked up by his buddy (Walken), who both men know has been ordered to execute the newly released man.  Along the way, they “rescue” their getaway driver (Arkin) from his convalescent home and have a series of adventures.  The adventures themselves don’t matter.  It’s all  really about these old men – all adrenaline junkies in their youth – getting a chance for one more surge of excitement and mastery.  Pacino’s Val gets to ask for what must be the hundredth time “Are we gonna kick ass or chew gum?”, knowing that Walken’s Doc will once again reply, “I’m all outta gum”.

Pacino, Walken and Arkin each deliver rich characterizations.  Pacino’s Val, despite his creakiness, has 28 years of pent-up energy and a determination to party before he gets whacked.  Walken’s Doc has adjusted to the pace of retirement; he’s not looking for adventure, but just to show Val a good time with sad obligation.   Arkin’s Hirsch already has a foot in the grave, but still possesses some impressive skills.  The young actress Addison Timlin brings a charisma to what could have been a generic role; she is in four more movies this year, and she’s worth watching out for.

Movies to See Right Now

by
AMOUR

Try to catch the Oscar Nominated Short Films – in theaters only for this coming week.  The pretty good horror movie Mama, with Jessica Chastain, can send chills down your spine without any slashing or splattering. Quartet is a pleasant lark of a geezer comedy with four fine performances.

Zero Dark Thirty, Argo, Lincoln and Silver Linings Playbook are on my list of Best Movies of 2012 and all are nominated for the Best Picture Oscar.  The French language drama Amour, also nominated for Best Picture, is a brilliantly made film about the end of life – it’s also an almost unbearable viewing experience.

If, like me, you worship the spaghetti Western, the Quentin Tarantino blockbuster Django Unchained is gloriously pedal-to-the-metal, splattering exploitation. The intelligent drama Rust and Bone is the singular tale of a complicated woman and an uncomplicated man.

Ang Lee’s visually stunning fable Life of Pi is an enthralling commentary on story-telling. Denzel Washington stars in Flight, a thriller about the miraculous crash landing of an airliner and the even more dangerous battle against alcoholism. Skyfall updates the James Bond franchise with thrilling action and a more shopworn 007 from Daniel Craig.

Skip the unoriginal mob movie Gangster Squad, which wastes its fine cast. Also pass on the lavish but stupefying all star Les Miserables, with its multiple endings, each more miserable than the last. The FDR movie Hyde Park on Hudson is a bore. The disaster movie The Impossible is only for audiences that enjoy watching suffering adults and children in peril.  I have not seen Movie 43 –  it is the most critically reviled movie in a looooong time.

I haven’t seen the Pacino/Walken/Arkin geezer mob film Stand Up Guys or the inventive zombie movie Warm Bodies, which open this weekend. You can read descriptions and view trailers of upcoming films at Movies I’m Looking Forward To.

My DVD of the week is the deliciously pulpy neo-noir The Paperboy.

Today Turner Classic Movies begins its annual 31 Days of Oscars, celebrating the Oscars by filling its broadcast schedule with Academy Award-winning films.