Entertainment film in its highest form should present you with a story or aspect of a story that compels you to totally commit, unconditionally indulge, or consciously tolerate its plot, even in the face of something unexpected, unlikely or virtually impossible. In comes The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, the time-metaphoric tale of a male born with the physical characteristics of a very old man - plagued with cataracts, wrinkled skin, fragile bones and a slew of other chronic ailments - who ages in reverse, becoming more youthful with each tick of the clock. He is deserted at birth, rescued by a stranger who is accustomed to caring for the aged, but who recognizes that what the infant needs most is love; the baby boy, ironically, in his innocence, presents her with an opportunity to nurture in the reverse care-giving manner than her daily routine running a home for the elderly requires. Button has a sequence of encounters and experiences as he grows progressively younger, maintaining a physical, psychological and cyclical anchor at the home of his adopted mother. Borrowing ever so loosely from the basic premise of the 25-page 1922 short story of the same title by F. Scott Fitzgerald, this rendition by Eric Roth (Forrest Gump, The Insider) and Robin Swicord veers from many specifics of the original storyline but maintains its rootedness in the mysterious nature of Benjamin Button's life as a means to addressing conflicting attitudes surrounding the fact of aging and our ambivalence about concepts of time.
Brad Pitt delivers his best performance to date as Button - the quiet, confused man who walks the thinnest of lines between a resolved situation and life as a victim. And while the make-up and computer magic are unquestionably part of the cast in this film, Pitt wears these masks well, delivering just the right amount of reserve, cautiousness and passivity where applicable and enough hints of initiative and emotion when necessary. He is superbly supported by Taraji Henson as Queenie, the woman who raises him. Pitt and Henson should make the coveted short list from members of the Academy - Henson should walk with a statue. Jared Harris as Captain Mike, the tattooed seaman who befriends him, Tilda Swinton as Elizabeth Abbott, the woman who seduces him, and Elle Fanning (yes, Dakota's younger sister hits the mark here) who plays young Daisy - the love of his life also deliver strong performances. Cate Blanchett, however, has done stronger work. Her portrayal of Daisy grown up is credible, and occasionally comes across as just awkward enough to add another edge (even if unplanned) to an already unusual production, but it falls short of memorable, even moreso in light of Henson's and Swinton's great work in this project.
Director David Fincher (Se7en, Zodiac, Fight Club) seems to have an affinity for time-mazed fantasies and should pull an Oscar nomination as well. While he intrigues us to the point of at least hanging with the idea of Button's delimma, and gently prods us into gradually caring a bit about the character, he wisely avoids overt sentimentalism, laces the film with humor, and makes the love story one of its layers, not the force that truly drives the film - that aspect, for me, is all contained in the uniqueness, mysteriousness, and involuntary oneness of Button.
This may be a difficult film for some to follow (and swallow). It raises a lot of what-ifs and imagine this. Concepts of then and now, past and present merge in call and response-like scenarios facilitated by flashbacks, the voice of a diary reader, the recollection of an aging Daisy, the impending threat of Hurricane Katrina, the counterclockwise ticking of a large clock, the coloration of the images, silence, noise, water, travel, and Button's perspective. There is an understated attentiveness to the very status of being severely different, awkward, and yet human; of being embraced and accepted in one's own unsualness as opposed to being patronized and tolerated. Given a chance - one this film clearly deserves - the movie provides food for serious thought.
If you watch the film instead of your cell phone clock - a distraction and a nuisance to everyone seated nearby - you really do not feel its 2 hour 47 minutes. And after all, whom among us has not stated or thought, "if I could turn back the hands of time"?...
Grade: A-
Amalia
Tuesday, December 30, 2008
Wednesday, July 23, 2008
The Dark Knight
...I like the Lambourgini...I want the motorcycle...and the home is not half bad either....
The Dark Knight joins a relatively short list of sequels that hold their own as separate episodes that are as reputable as their preceding movies. While the success of this film is not comparable to Francis Ford Coppola's excellent, classic Godfather trilogy; nor does it advance the kind of psychological and technological breakthroughs of the Matrix threesome; producer/director Christopher Nolan does a credible job of re-formatting the familiar legendary action hero in contemporary cinematic terms, and, in this particular episode, his Joker nemesis - a character that was practically immortalized by a great performance on the part of Jack Nicholson in 1989 - reoccurs in an explosive portrayal by the late Heath Ledger.
Here, the enigmatic, temperamental Batman is further defined outside of the strict comic book persona. Less cartoonish and even more mysterious, his stoicism gives way to passion and his former sense of invincibility is replaced with vulnerability and questionable ethics. Gotham City has leaders who are, in the more normal context, heroes in their own right, and who interact and plot strategies with the super hero who is as counter-culture as he is anti-crime.
The Dark Knight is an action-packed, visually stimulating, engaging, suspenseful, and well acted film. Heath Ledger, the object of most of the film's pre-opening hype and a major factor in terms of its early record-breaking box office returns, is superb as the Joker. All jokes aside (pun intended), he nails the role - the Joker's psychotic, manipulative, and inhumane presence are pushed to the limits by Ledger. If he receives a posthumous Oscar nomination for best supporting actor from the Academy, as the Hollywood buzz seems to indicate, it may well be deserved. While I cannot go so far as to state that he surpasses the memorable performance of Nicholson, he is magnificent in the paradigm established by Nolan.
Christian Bale is no slouch either. He is equally on the mark as Batman in a performance that takes a back seat to no one's. Bale is totally believable as the personification of the Dark Knight whose dichotomous lifestyle is the source of his complex personality and conflicting modes of behavior; and he does so with power and precision. Bale is so well suited for this role that it is possible (and likely) that viewers will minimize his outstanding performance, particularly in light of Ledger's untimely death and celebrated portrayal of the Joker. He has great on-screen chemistry with cast members Michael Caine, Morgan Freeman and Gary Oldman, and his timing and sensitivity in terms of his physical assertiveness in each scene are tiny elements that translate into big pay offs in the total impact of a film.
Kudos to Aaron Eckhart, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Oldman, Freeman, Caine and Chin Han - all great actors in their own right - for their individual contributions to the overall success of the film.
The Dark Knight has raised the mark for a one day cash total (66.4 million) and has raised the bar for DC Comics-inspired films. The greatest challenge for Warner Brothers, Christopher Nolan and Christian Bale is, how do they repeat it in the next sequence, much less top it?
Grade: A
Until next time,
Amalia
The Dark Knight joins a relatively short list of sequels that hold their own as separate episodes that are as reputable as their preceding movies. While the success of this film is not comparable to Francis Ford Coppola's excellent, classic Godfather trilogy; nor does it advance the kind of psychological and technological breakthroughs of the Matrix threesome; producer/director Christopher Nolan does a credible job of re-formatting the familiar legendary action hero in contemporary cinematic terms, and, in this particular episode, his Joker nemesis - a character that was practically immortalized by a great performance on the part of Jack Nicholson in 1989 - reoccurs in an explosive portrayal by the late Heath Ledger.
Here, the enigmatic, temperamental Batman is further defined outside of the strict comic book persona. Less cartoonish and even more mysterious, his stoicism gives way to passion and his former sense of invincibility is replaced with vulnerability and questionable ethics. Gotham City has leaders who are, in the more normal context, heroes in their own right, and who interact and plot strategies with the super hero who is as counter-culture as he is anti-crime.
The Dark Knight is an action-packed, visually stimulating, engaging, suspenseful, and well acted film. Heath Ledger, the object of most of the film's pre-opening hype and a major factor in terms of its early record-breaking box office returns, is superb as the Joker. All jokes aside (pun intended), he nails the role - the Joker's psychotic, manipulative, and inhumane presence are pushed to the limits by Ledger. If he receives a posthumous Oscar nomination for best supporting actor from the Academy, as the Hollywood buzz seems to indicate, it may well be deserved. While I cannot go so far as to state that he surpasses the memorable performance of Nicholson, he is magnificent in the paradigm established by Nolan.
Christian Bale is no slouch either. He is equally on the mark as Batman in a performance that takes a back seat to no one's. Bale is totally believable as the personification of the Dark Knight whose dichotomous lifestyle is the source of his complex personality and conflicting modes of behavior; and he does so with power and precision. Bale is so well suited for this role that it is possible (and likely) that viewers will minimize his outstanding performance, particularly in light of Ledger's untimely death and celebrated portrayal of the Joker. He has great on-screen chemistry with cast members Michael Caine, Morgan Freeman and Gary Oldman, and his timing and sensitivity in terms of his physical assertiveness in each scene are tiny elements that translate into big pay offs in the total impact of a film.
Kudos to Aaron Eckhart, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Oldman, Freeman, Caine and Chin Han - all great actors in their own right - for their individual contributions to the overall success of the film.
The Dark Knight has raised the mark for a one day cash total (66.4 million) and has raised the bar for DC Comics-inspired films. The greatest challenge for Warner Brothers, Christopher Nolan and Christian Bale is, how do they repeat it in the next sequence, much less top it?
Grade: A
Until next time,
Amalia
Tuesday, May 27, 2008
Salute and Farewell: Sydney I. Pollack (1934-2008)
Hollywood and the movie loving public lost a great one Monday, May 26 when award-winning director, producer, actor and writer Sydney Pollack passed due to a cancer related illness.
Initially an actor, Pollack made his film debut in War Hunt, a 1962 drama about the traumas of war that was also the first big screen appearance for Robert Redford and Tom Skerritt. He and Redford became longtime friends, and Redford urged him to pursue directing. Taking Redford's advise, the two subsequently worked on seven films together, including This Property is Condemned (1966), Three Days of The Condor (1975), Jeremiah Johnson (1973), The Way We Were (1975), The Electric Horseman (1979), Out of Africa (1985) – winner of the Academy Award for Best Director and Best Movie -, and Havana (1990/91). But while Pollack enjoyed tremendous acclaim for Out of Africa (still considered his masterwork), he directed and produced a number of additional risk-taking, groundbreaking and highly creative films that helped to define American film in the 1970s and 1980s.
His first major motion picture direction was The Slender Thread (1965) with Sidney Poitier as an unsuspecting college-volunteer at a crisis help line who expects to essentially watch the phones for a brief interim between expert shifts rather than actually man them, and Anne Bancroft as a suicide caller who seeks subliminal companionship and anonymity as she slowly succumbs to an overdose of pills rather than help and rescue. Both bring the ideal amount of anxiety, passion and sense of spontaneity to their characters with powerful support performances by Telly Savalas as the crisis line psychiatrist, Steven Hill as the neglectful husband, and Edward Asner as the police detective trying to locate her before it is too late. A fact based story, it is an emotional, gripping drama that is almost gritty in its black and white format. There is simplicity and honesty in its candor, and the interaction between characters is on the mark in every scene. In addition to his artistry, Pollack was on target in casting Poitier as the student - a role that was not contingent on racial implications during an era in the United States when race was on the forefront of America’s daily existence, and at a time when far too few individuals in Hollywood made such decisions based on talent, not skin color. In so doing, however, Pollack allowed the viewer to consider the potential associative relationship between race and sight – neither of the two voices on the phone can see the "physical identity" of the other - and the fact of race is rendered superficial in light of the life-and-death circumstances of the situation.
Pollack’s meat and bread genre was political thrillers - Three Days of The Condor remains his most outstanding film in this regard, although The Firm (1993) and The Interpreter (2005) are two among others that contribute significantly to his reputation in this arena. He was also capable of driving the romantic comedy (Tootsie, 1982); and, had a particular gift for inspiring ensemble casts to simultaneously bring solo and collective believability and punch to complex stories that consequently appealed to diverse audiences...They Shoot Horses, Don’t They (1969), Absence of Malice (1981), and Sabrina (1995) come quickly to mind.
While Pollack delivered credible support actor work in Changing Lanes (2002), Michael Clayton (2007), etc., he rose to his fullest height as a director and as producer of such notables as Presumed Innocent (1990), Sense and Sensibility (1995), The Talented Mr. Ripley (1999), and Cold Mountain (2003).
Sydney Pollack will be missed by this movie-goer...and many, many others.
Initially an actor, Pollack made his film debut in War Hunt, a 1962 drama about the traumas of war that was also the first big screen appearance for Robert Redford and Tom Skerritt. He and Redford became longtime friends, and Redford urged him to pursue directing. Taking Redford's advise, the two subsequently worked on seven films together, including This Property is Condemned (1966), Three Days of The Condor (1975), Jeremiah Johnson (1973), The Way We Were (1975), The Electric Horseman (1979), Out of Africa (1985) – winner of the Academy Award for Best Director and Best Movie -, and Havana (1990/91). But while Pollack enjoyed tremendous acclaim for Out of Africa (still considered his masterwork), he directed and produced a number of additional risk-taking, groundbreaking and highly creative films that helped to define American film in the 1970s and 1980s.
His first major motion picture direction was The Slender Thread (1965) with Sidney Poitier as an unsuspecting college-volunteer at a crisis help line who expects to essentially watch the phones for a brief interim between expert shifts rather than actually man them, and Anne Bancroft as a suicide caller who seeks subliminal companionship and anonymity as she slowly succumbs to an overdose of pills rather than help and rescue. Both bring the ideal amount of anxiety, passion and sense of spontaneity to their characters with powerful support performances by Telly Savalas as the crisis line psychiatrist, Steven Hill as the neglectful husband, and Edward Asner as the police detective trying to locate her before it is too late. A fact based story, it is an emotional, gripping drama that is almost gritty in its black and white format. There is simplicity and honesty in its candor, and the interaction between characters is on the mark in every scene. In addition to his artistry, Pollack was on target in casting Poitier as the student - a role that was not contingent on racial implications during an era in the United States when race was on the forefront of America’s daily existence, and at a time when far too few individuals in Hollywood made such decisions based on talent, not skin color. In so doing, however, Pollack allowed the viewer to consider the potential associative relationship between race and sight – neither of the two voices on the phone can see the "physical identity" of the other - and the fact of race is rendered superficial in light of the life-and-death circumstances of the situation.
Pollack’s meat and bread genre was political thrillers - Three Days of The Condor remains his most outstanding film in this regard, although The Firm (1993) and The Interpreter (2005) are two among others that contribute significantly to his reputation in this arena. He was also capable of driving the romantic comedy (Tootsie, 1982); and, had a particular gift for inspiring ensemble casts to simultaneously bring solo and collective believability and punch to complex stories that consequently appealed to diverse audiences...They Shoot Horses, Don’t They (1969), Absence of Malice (1981), and Sabrina (1995) come quickly to mind.
While Pollack delivered credible support actor work in Changing Lanes (2002), Michael Clayton (2007), etc., he rose to his fullest height as a director and as producer of such notables as Presumed Innocent (1990), Sense and Sensibility (1995), The Talented Mr. Ripley (1999), and Cold Mountain (2003).
Sydney Pollack will be missed by this movie-goer...and many, many others.
Thursday, May 22, 2008
REVIEW: Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull
Hold On To Your Hats!?
This latest adventure of Indiana Jones blasted on the scene Sunday (May 18,2008) at its Cannes premiere following a red carpet introduction that was an indication of its inevitable blockbuster status beginning with its bombardment of theaters commencing today. As might be expected, there are exotic locations, amazing sceneries, 007-inspired escapes, bugs, and what director Steven Spielberg referred to as "old fashioned stunt work and practical magic as opposed to digital magic".
Upside: This is a film that should be seen on the big screen. The opening scenes in Nevada are gripping and somewhat visually amazing. There are some great one-liners, including Indiana's poking fun at himself, mostly about his age. The soundtrack is decent. Cate Blanchett is superb as a KGB dominatrix. It is relatively family friendly.
Downside: Some sequence outcomes are predictable. The middle is less interesting and therefore less engaging than the beginning and end, and I mean the very end - which is a subtle way of saying the film literally struggles to get to the end and that the film is too long.
But, hey...if you have LOL for the Indy franchise, you will probably share few if any of these views...but this is how I see it.
I will say more later, following a second look today.
Ciao
After a second look (yes, I went back to the theater with two family members Friday, May 23), my original thoughts did not change. See why I graded this Indy film a C+ in the comments section.
This latest adventure of Indiana Jones blasted on the scene Sunday (May 18,2008) at its Cannes premiere following a red carpet introduction that was an indication of its inevitable blockbuster status beginning with its bombardment of theaters commencing today. As might be expected, there are exotic locations, amazing sceneries, 007-inspired escapes, bugs, and what director Steven Spielberg referred to as "old fashioned stunt work and practical magic as opposed to digital magic".
Upside: This is a film that should be seen on the big screen. The opening scenes in Nevada are gripping and somewhat visually amazing. There are some great one-liners, including Indiana's poking fun at himself, mostly about his age. The soundtrack is decent. Cate Blanchett is superb as a KGB dominatrix. It is relatively family friendly.
Downside: Some sequence outcomes are predictable. The middle is less interesting and therefore less engaging than the beginning and end, and I mean the very end - which is a subtle way of saying the film literally struggles to get to the end and that the film is too long.
But, hey...if you have LOL for the Indy franchise, you will probably share few if any of these views...but this is how I see it.
I will say more later, following a second look today.
Ciao
After a second look (yes, I went back to the theater with two family members Friday, May 23), my original thoughts did not change. See why I graded this Indy film a C+ in the comments section.
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