Check my reviews and lots of other cool stuff at EInsiders.com! My latest is for the Jeff Daniels/Emma Stone feature "Paper Man" from Artfire Films. EInsiders hosts film reviews, festival coverage, exclusive interviews, DVD/trailer spots and even Hollywood Obituaries! Morbidity for the masses!
Richard has hit a wall. This proverbial expression is no understatement, in fact, he can't seem to get past even the first sentence of his second novel, and his wife, Claire (Lisa Kudrow) - though we don't see it on screen - might just be celebrating far away from the Long Island cabin she drops him off in in the opening moments of writer-director team Michele and Kieran Mulroney's "Paper Man". For once, she won't have to supervise her husband, a baby trapped in a man's body. From there, Richard the floundering writer sets out, with inner chiming from his imaginary superhero alter-ego Captain Excellent (Ryan Reynolds), to draw inspiration from his bleak surroundings.
What - or rather, whom - he finds to feed this craving of perception, though is a girl named Abby (Emma Stone), and after a curious following of her around the back alleys of town on his bicycle, the girl agrees instantaneously to act as Richard's baby sitter. I know, I know, thematically this works, since Richard is the guy who needs babysitting in the first place. It's a metaphor, right? But when you're a girl who's literally just met a significantly older man out at random on the street, the tone might suggest something quite different. And when Richard later reveals to her after she shows up that there's in fact no baby to watch, well, that's probably your cue to swiftly exit the building. Supposing myself or any sensible girl growing up in the post-modern 9/11 age of "To Catch A Predator" or "Forensic Files" was Abby, Richard might not exactly be the kind of man you can bet on. But Abby stays. There's something so irresistibly mystifying about Richard, the story suggests. Yet anything more mystifying than Abby's naivete you'll be hard-pressed to find. "Paper Man" has no intentions of being a creepy slasher film, but with encounters like this, it sure sets us up for one.
Daniels, Emma Stone, Lisa Kudrow and the jocular Ryan Reynolds all put in good work here, in fact Stone shows real depth as Abby, the disillusioned and troubled teenager. She's convincing as the kind of girl whose wit and judiciousness puts her well beyond her years. But it's that fact that partially leaves us stupefied when she willingly puts herself at the romantic disposal of a complete and utter half-baked sleaze louse like that of Abby's boyfriend, Bryce. Stone is not opposite the frenzied comic timing of Jonah Hill or even the charm of Teddy Geiger that makes her character acting flow with a natural ease. Hunter Parrish plays Bryce with a stinking stupidity (Think of the obnoxious intrusiveness of one of the droogs from "A Clockwork Orange" who's too lazy to commit any violence), and while it's maybe the source of Abby's melancholy that tries to make, refraining from questioning her intellect can become a bit tiresome. When someone as charming, witty and vivacious as this is at the mercy of the sexual prowess of a buffoon, her independent spirit you're instructed to love sadly dissipates. As for the scenes with Reynolds, his superhero can be lively, perceptive and hilariously eccentric, if only he were simply given enough screen-time and were permitted to be released from the shackles of this narrative.
What the film aims to be, I think, is a dry, witty and intimate glimpse into the lives and souls of these misunderstood everyday people, but simply cannot connect; exemplified in this bit of dialogue: "If only everything in the world could be covered in butter", Richard remarks. "What a buttery world". What? We lean in from one interaction to the next, with the directors under the impression that with enough gestures, delivered either wryly or with yearning lament, that we will emerge with a wholly developed protagonist. Unfortunately it is lines that this that make it no wonder why Richard is doomed, indeed to remain so frustrated and misunderstood.
The problem is, writer-directors Michele and Kieran Mulroney don't seem to know these characters all that well, or perhaps that the film is too lazy to identify them, in spite of the statements the husband-and-wife filmmaker team may know they want to make. "Paper Man" has that fatal air of pretension, the kind that expects you almost instantly to understand each of its motivations and ideas while forgetting to develop them first. If Abby yearns for someone deeper than her spineless partner, I found myself asking, what is the purpose of her imaginary friend Christopher (Keiran Culkin, brother of Macaulay and Rory)? Or is he an extension of her unexamined feelings that Richard's literary work and mind can allow her to freely explore?
Such ideas certainly resonate with the enigmas of an estranged, struggling writer bashing his head repeatedly with frustration, and if that were the case, the film would be inspirational. Richard and Abby's unresolved problems in life seek to be thrashed out by Captain Excellent and Christopher, but instead they're mocked and bemoaned. This melancholy dominates "Paper Man", so much so that the relationships it projects feel empty, soldered together with nothing but moping and platonic commiserating.
Richard and Abby's paths through struggle both rely on the strength of their imaginations, with characters of their dreamed up subconscious functioning as a source of perseverance in times of crisis. We've seen this story before in a grittier, darker film like "Precious: Based On The Novel 'Push' by Sapphire", and it continues to be explored through taut psychological suspense like this year's "Shutter Island". Those films are horses of a different color, I'm aware, with vastly different ambitions, but those films nevertheless are identical in their choice of narrative, and where those films use an inspired premise as their catalysts in driving the narrative, "Paper Man" left me befuddled in the over-trusting of its performances to translate its undercooked moot points. While it's easy to acknowledge this is poised for good material, "Paper Man"'s watery script leaves us in a haze of unanswered questions, questions far more alluring than the stock phrase resolution it decides to crawl into.
As Richard prepares to write, Claire gives him some cautionary wisdom: "Don't fixate". On its subjects, "Paper Man" probably should have fixated a little more.
★★☆☆☆ (2/5)
Cast & Credits
Richard Dunne: Jeff Daniels Abby: Emma Stone Captain Excellent: Ryan Reynolds Claire Dunne: Lisa Kudrow Bryce: Hunter Parrish Christopher: Kieran Culkin
Artfire Films presents a film directed by Michele and Kieran Mulroney. Produced by Richard Gladstein, Guymon Casady, Art Spigel and Ara Katz. Running Time: 111 Minutes. Rated R (For Language and a Scene of Sexuality).
You can find this review, its supplemental materials, as well as other extensive film coverage at EInsiders.com.
Characterization within narrative contains a deep-rooted, almost pre-meditated quality. In films, as the tale of a singular character unfolds, it is as if we are adjusting the blinds covering a window, allowing the light to seep in little by little, in an eventual, seeping trajectory. As viewers, we may have never known initially that the depths of a character under the microscope pre-existed, and yet nevertheless they did all along. The course of their actions, their tendencies - their fate -mirror the intrinsic knowledge of their creator, they exist in one man, or woman’s universe. In essence, the effectuation of that universe attributes to filmmaking its disposition toward whomever is at the helm of the work. The reckoning that film is most precisely (though not limited to) a director’s medium is by no means an unfounded notion. Removing from the mundane, we are gripped by what compels, but more importantly, the enigmatic unknown that could strike at any moment in alarming and human ways.
We, the thinking, evolving audience yearn to empathize with real dilemmas – with the man who feels betrayed, the one who feels rejected, or even disgraced. Thus, the state in which well-crafted protagonists dwell is and should be wrenching in its truth, and their environment is often unapologetic. It comes to us as no shock, no surprise that oppressed souls, as they inhabit the seedy, draining, bloodsucking backdrop of the city streets seek refuge and solace in the pristine rapture of the fairer, subservient, assimilating sex.
More succinctly, in Martin Scorsese’s films, blonde, white women are heaven-sent. They are the air we breathe. They are the nurturing, understanding, submissive sub-humans they should be. They exist to entertain the self-referential reflections of the overtly masculine male, who relishes in covertly exploring his more delicate undercurrents. And yet such functions of femininity, even in their promotion, their support of peaceful, androgynous platitude of all good relationships, can only satisfy for so long. Their progression ceases, gobbled up in a paradox of the way in which their men incompetently understand them.
Scorsese’s women are fascinated with the world enough to be complacent, yes, but never enough to lay the groundwork, to innovate, to be liberated. Perhaps that’s what frustrates their male counterparts so severely, in their constrained efforts to dominate the microcosm in which they live.
Within the director’s version of their universe, soaked in suspicion, clouded in cynicism, Scorsese’s characters forge with a great deal of heart and spirit through their daily trappings. For “Who’s That Knocking At My Door”’s J.R., those boundaries are a life of crime. With the aid of a quintessential love interest, there is perhaps a righteous defiance in the time J.R. spends with her, a triumph of conscience over his private lifestyle, the one she knows nothing about. If not characteristic of the entirety of this work, Scorsese’s initial gravitation toward the script-relative title “I Call First” would have provided a cutting satirical commentary on the kind of hollow, overly saturated affection J.R. pours onto his love interest.
J.R.’s life behind closed doors - including nights of drunken, violent binges and perversely chauvinistic male camaraderie - reject any grain of purity in his pretensions.
That he courts his golden-haloed princess with showers of laughter and flirtatious innuendo, yet still finds room in his philosophy for the reduction of women he categorizes as either “girls” or “broads” limits his psyche to a distressed, volatile mistrust of the opposite sex, and it’s coupled with the kind of underlying insecurity that makes loving a woman in the real world theoretically impossible, and also potentially hazardous. Consequently, J.R.’s understanding of the small, male dominated subculture in which he operates sets the stage for the most manic pitfall of all: the quasi-Freudian and wholly anxiety ridden “Madonna - Whore Complex”.
J.R. acknowledges that there exists a cultural diffidence in the rat pack conduct he cultivates. The kind of after hours fare he and his company pull even with boyish glee is often harsh enough to necessitate a feminine tenderness. Coinciding with Mr. Scorsese's skewed directorial universe, the male lead's female complement - unfairly or not - has been previously assigned to alleviate his deviance both superficially and subconsciously, on his own terms.
J.R.'s criminality festers him with guilt on a religious level of commitment. The opposing opening and ending sequences of “Who’s That Knocking” play out much like a simplistic and essential blueprint of family life, with an off-base merging of devout Italian – American Catholicism and male dominated ethical norms that could make “Leave It To Beaver” look progressive on a relative scale. J.R.’s illusion – or delusion – of this kind of consummate Americanism is what fuels the passion of his pursuits, and allows him to be sufficient in projecting his love on a woman.
What is inevitable, however, is the snap. As their relationship gradually builds, the girl, like most women, becomes comfortable in her vulnerability. As a passage into a heightened level of sentiment and intimacy, she then exposes a raw and unadulterated aspect of herself that becomes too much for his provincial small-mindedness. In J.R.’s case, it is his girlfriend’s revelation of a dark, disturbing secret that triggers an almost psychotic reaction. Upon discovering (through a cathartic confession not at all different his own church confessionals) that his girlfriend has been raped, J.R. instantly casts her out. He may possess for her strong love, and even dependency, yet tragically his world is crushed to pieces with the compromising of any of his cherished male codes of presumption.
Scorsese further distinguishes “the snap” triggered by female roles via his character study of “Taxi Driver”’s Travis Bickle, with even higher stakes. This film, in many ways is about that snap. For Travis, his absorption of the low-lives and scum of New York City is his living nightmare. Like J.R. invests an undeserving and unrealistic hope in his girlfriend to “save” him from the perils of a life of crime, Travis bets his hand on an “unspoken connection” with the blonde-haired siren Betsy to ease his deranged radicalism toward a society comprised of people with which his wildly fanatical principles cannot bear to co-exist .
Much to his misfortune, he is almost surreally overbearing in his efforts to court her, and when she rightfully rejects him, the pain that follows becomes a tragic arch in his journey in which he becomes fully unhinged.
“She’s just like the rest of them”, Travis says, “Cold and distant”. Perhaps the most upsetting and disturbing thought is that upon Travis’ rejection - from the moment Betsy hangs up the phone – she has made it easy for him to turn hostile toward those he detests and fails to understand. The simple act of rejection has now sealed the threat of violence, in a character arc designed to cement the fate of the victims that will die at Travis’ hand. That violence that Travis will infamously turn against his enemy is unmistakably displaced by his inability to accept that women, like men are not perfect. They are flawed, and with good reason – they’re human. It’s a concept that doesn’t quite jibe with Travis, and likewise bloodshed ensues.
Jake “Raging Bull” La Motta’s blonde, subservient belle Vickie is often the catalyst of violence in the 1980 film; again we are delving into a study of character territory that is familiar but richened in its willing to go to extremes to illustrate just how far the animosity of a man can go when constrained by the ailments of his protocol of self-subscribed, overkill robustness. Jake is constantly inquisitive of his wife’s behavior, which is almost always, if not always modest and innocent. His expression of violence in the ring is abrasive and visceral, it certainly evokes response; Scorsese presents Jake’s outbursts as the same type of self-loathing despair Travis experiences, consistently categorized by his inadequacy to see his woman as anything more or less than a servicing object who’s either an angelic mute who indulges sexual prowess and coddles Jake’s fluctuating state of inner-child, or a perverse and untrustworthy slut. To this degree, Jake’s visual associations can morph the most conventional of gestures – like the kissing of a friend or acquaintance on the cheek as greeting – into a whorish romp.
The fact that Jake’s conviction of his wife’s deviance has an infectious rhetoric to it is perhaps even more sickening. Jake’s brother Joey (Joe Pesci) himself inhibits a similar disposition and mistreatment so intensely that it ventures off into comedic, satirical territory. Joey watches his brother perform this sado-masichist exercise of suspicion every second of every day, and we learn that even his otherwise decent sensibility can take a turn. As a reflexive film, "Raging Bull" returns constantly to those types of scenes, with mistreatment and violence at its core, ready to be celebrated, transfixed, or used to further these characters.
In this scene, as Joey demeans his wife in front of his brother at their kitchen table, he is no doubt shaped by and acting out the influence of his brother Jake’s disregarding of anything wholesome in his spouse.
The disdain for the mere notion of equity and embrace within the gender dynamic, the inheritance of a fallacy of intimate relations, passion without sympathy. Isn’t that more disgusting than the violence itself?
In "Hot Tub Time Machine", those hungry for incendiary and organic comedic farce got just what they ordered, perhaps even a little more than expected. To be fair, it's formula-driven in the celebratory depiction of the anarchic male bonding experience that "The Hangover" has previously executed to a slighter better degree. Be that as it may, it remains clever in that the neuroses and groveling of the film's characters freshens the material, fueling their escapades as well as the actors' pitch perfect rapport with its absurdist, gleefully idiotic premise. Through its juvenilia, "Hot Tub Time Machine" - a film with one of the most ambitious working titles of late - serves up a raucous and hilarious parable on living and coping with regret, while grappling with the trappings of modern middle-age crisis in a poignant, yet not too self-serious manner. Am I sure I'm talking about "Hot Tub Time Machine"? Well, yes, I am.
The existence of the film's three 40-something men, Adam (John Cusack), Nick (Craig Robinson) and Lou (a brazenly unhinged Rob Corddry) becomes something of a wallowing, repeated drone. Adam arrives to a message on his answering machine from his girlfriend, presumably one of many who's laid the news on him that, basically, she's through. Nick may have had dreams of music stardom, but they're washed away by his "going in another direction", on a path that starts in abandonment of his young potential and ends in the depths of, um, a dog's behind. And Rob Corddry's Lou, the sort of kindred spirit of "Time Machine", simply can't acclimate to these conditions; his episodes of drunken, wild, raving self-disapproval are the personality of the material, with Corddry practically making the movie his own. Lou dishes out cold, insensitive banter that's probably displaced by the character's own self-loathing, and Adam's 20-year-old nephew Jacob (a quick, dry Clark Duke) straight-mans and sometimes drolly dispels it to casual, cutting effect. Duke has always had talent and a comic sensibility but played it safe in weaker, forgettable dunce vehicles like "Sex Drive", and even on the prim and packaged ABC Family sitcom "Greek". Here he totes some real comedic muscle.
The troupe assembles half-heartedly following a suspicious car accident with Lou behind the wheel. Whether it's a suicide attempt, we're not so sure. We get the feeling that Nick and Adam have known Lou far too long to be at all surprised if it were. Amidst desperation to regain the momentum of their youth, the guys attempt to impulsively break from the norm and head to their old self-mythologized stomping grounds, the Kodiak Valley Ski Resort, "K-Val!" as Lou lovingly recalls. From there, one night in their resort hot tub delivers exactly what the title promises, a campy, vulgar, coarse, but still clever comedy with discernible heart.
I won't give away too many of the plot's details, they're meant to be experienced like a throbbing, delirious headache of the wildly intoxicated expedition these men plow their way through. One running story line with the hotel's bell hop (Crispin Glover, 'Back To The Future''s George McFly), is a gag that creates a sporadic element among some of the movie's best scenes, and Chevy Chase as the enigmatic repair man grounds the film's sense of homage and gives it the goofy edge that makes the actors' initial deadpan so amusing. Director Steve Pink summons his both travestied and adored 80's decade, in a sendoff of just the kind of schlock that the younger mullet, flat top and mop donning versions of its protagonists must have watched over excessive recreational drinking, yearning to recreate the TOTALLY AWESOME times they immodestly depict. I've heard that "Hot Tub Time Machine" was born out of the idea to recreate 1984's "Hot Dog...The Movie", and though I can't quote director Pink on that statement's accuracy, I too felt as though I was watching the vapid, fun-loving spirit of "Hot Dog", "Ski School", and every other teen sex comedy that relished in heroizing 19 and 20 year old guys as the Hugh Hefners of their respective Winter-fests. Mr. Pink seems to be inspired by these films while maintaining just the right tone, and extracting the best parts of even the most low-brow palette.
Ambitious in its ski and skin sexploration and guy-centered fare, many are likely to be offended by how roughly our band of middle-aged retro-starved comrades conduct themselves, as well as question whether many of the gross-out sight gags are necessary. This film is not for those people, although if they were to ride out initial impressions, they might find that those gags do work. The hot tub's function - other than to be a time machine ignited by an illegal energy drink, of course - is to help center the sadness in Adam, Nick and Lou's seasick lives with perspective, and writers Josh Heald, Sean Anders and John Morris' blend of coinciding nausea and comic confidence makes for a film that is, well, nauseatingly funny. Likewise, so is this 80's decade, in its riotous, spandex, hair-metal, drug-induced glory.
★★★☆☆ (3/5)
Cast & Credits Adam: John Cusack Lou: Rob Corddry Nick: Craig Robinson Jacob: Clark Duke Bellboy: Crispin Glover Alice: Lizzy Caplan Repairman: Chevy Chase
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer presents a film directed by Steve Pink. Written by Josh Heald, Sean Anders and John Morris. Running time: 98 minutes. Rated R (for strong crude and sexual content, nudity, drug use and pervasive language).
Allow me to preface my routine examination of the show in question with a confessional: I like this kind of stuff. I like it because long after its events and somewhat distilled essence has been absorbed, it gets under your skin. Because it morphs the attitude and lifts the heart in a way a large majority percentage of all the world's motivational speakers or office depot stock inspirational quote posters can't. It provides a window into what it means to be "cool" - if that word ever had any meaning at all - in the face of the fast paced business world, a world full of disapproval, mounting frustrations, and more than a few unsavory and complicated relationships. It's also a reminder that perhaps, through all the hectic, sensationalist hype over self-help and Donald Trump type gurus, success stripped down is ultimately about 99.9% hustle.
Even in an economy plagued by the increasing toughness of job opportunities, even recognition of credible talent, it feels real and accessible because it attests to the warmth of this ideal. Describing the eagerness to pursue the path of ingenuity so cynically compromised in these testing times could be likened to the personal challenge of eating a rocky mountain oyster - trusting of its fine quality and status as a delicacy, yet nauseated, repulsed by the intake of an intimidation that accompanies one's knowledge of its origin. The forging purveyor of the 9 to 5 shift can find solace in its fantasy, and even muster the kind of fortitude that the goal of rising above one's suffocating, sometimes subduing environment necessitates. As a tee shirt created by Ben Epstein warns street weary would-be buyers: "New York City Eats Its Young".
There is a cult of attitude that exists in the frame of mind of the ambitious. It's epitomized by the glamour of dissatisfaction, of enduring friendships, of the thrill of the youthful, unconventional ride. It exists on HBO, and it's become something of a trademark from the perception of Mark Wahlberg, executive producer of the network's latest, "How To Make It In America".
Mr. Wahlberg, who executive produces HBO's "Entourage" (now on the brink of its running seventh season) has developed quite a knack for sharing his affinity for the grind of the day-to-day, where the starving may not be getting rich quick, but they're enamored with persistence. He is no stranger to the come-up himself, though his story - in the wake of Wikipedia and Imdb.com - may be a bit more accessible than that of the characters of his series for those without the luxury of higher cable programming. As "Marky Mark", hip-hop emcee and frontman for the "Funky Bunch", his launching point was based in Los Angeles with brother Donnie of "New Kids on the Block" fame, along with a staunch, dutiful set of confidantes (Eric Weinstein, Johnny "Drama" Alves, and Donnie "Donkey" Carrol, respectively). That boyishly retained inner-circle set the template for "Entourage"'s iconic set of perennially close-knit New-Yorkers turned LA players, who prefer to blaze their paths through instinct and sensibility, rather than the mere terminal desperation to peak in fame.
"How To Make It" is the quintessential hustler story, with Ben Epstein (Bryan Greenberg) and his lightning-quick confidant Cam Calderon (Victor Rasuk) at its center. They're high-spirited and low esteemed. I'd expect their friendship, in a show on HBO about New York, to be somewhat catering to the ego of its viewers and heavily ridden in over-wrought conversational exchanges, much like the kind of deliberate discussion of phallus and plastic packaging of "Sex In The City", or the sexually charged bloodlust of a misdirected, muddled soap opera like "True Blood". It isn't. You can imagine how gratifying it was to learn that this is indeed a show about its characters. Ben and Cam's behavior is governed by the streets they inhabit, rather than the style they think they have. They're not show-offs like Carrie Bradshaw and Samantha Jones, they are what they are. This free-flowing naturalism and ability to step outside self-consciousness is how the show retains its sense of spirit, a spirit that is alive to be examined.
The opening moments of "How To Make It"'s pilot episode have Ben sitting in one of the rooms of his apartment, staring in disapproval at what could have been his break-through - a stack of custom designed skateboard decks he crafted for a native skateboarder named Wilfredo Gomez. That Ben had the graphic designer chops to make those decks sell is not so much the issue as is the fact that Gomez ends up going senile. His talents can no longer push Ben's. As the two friends board the train during the first kick of the day, they catch glimpses of a young, scrappy free-enterprising kid peddling M & M's, admittedly not for any fundraiser, but rather on his own account. "I'm out here hustling for my damn self", he explains. Ben offers a bit of advice: "It's not about money, it's about respect", he assures him, though it's extended more with admiration than with the lecturing or disapproval of an after-school special. The boy's strive is the code they understand.
With "How To Make It", frequent series director Julian Farino retains his voguish status as a one television's finest, a grounded and enduringly hip provider of eye-view with a cool and affable sensibility. Mr. Farino - who's also acting as executive producer on this Wahlberg team's latest, has demonstrated in times past a responsible handling of the brisk, bonafide rapport of such iconic, breakthrough "Entourage" shows as "Aquamansion", "The Sundance Kids", and "The Bat Mitzvah", all episodes that define and explore their characters' layers through the swing of their unfolding events.
With "How To Make It In America", the group introduced in a fun and fast-paced first season is free to to explore and roams with conviction. Its fundamentals are in place, but with an angle and convincing performances that guides its material above stale, post-modern HBO condescension. That rapport and study of communique is as present here in Farino's work as ever, following the jaunted exchanges of Ben and Cam, an almost pitch perfect chemistry that blends Ben's bleak thick-skinned cynicism with Cam's frenetic, off-the-cuff, moment-to-moment lifestyle. There's an element of unpredictability in their journey that could just as soon have them peddling an newly blended, unknown energy drink named "Rasta Monsta" for Cam's ex-convict cousin Rene (played with a fun-loving, quirky novelty by Luis Guzman), as it could find them earning some recognition and landing an opportunity printing shirts for their idol, the Japanese clothing buyer Haraki.
Greenberg plays Ben with a sense of gravity that is weighed down by frustration, and sometimes doubt. He's always innovative with his assets, though has yet to ever see those assets give him pleasurable result. While "How To Make It" is crafted in the same conventions as any pseudo-hip soap opera, with its fair share of love triangles and exploitative romantic twists, there's a core between those arcs that make its relationship dynamics, particularly the one that centers around Ben and ex-girlfriend Rachel so grounded, so bewitchingly smooth - even in its rough patches. Pining over the inadequacies of that relationship, Rachel bluntly explains to Ben why she just couldn't make it work: "You needed to hate yourself", she says. That psychoanalysis would seemingly fit Ben, who thrives not on the headway of his successes, but the scrutiny, the anguish that backhands him in effect of his underdeveloped entrepreneurial schemes. One of Ben's professors at a college he chose to withdraw from tells him, "You had talent, just no follow-through".
But these characters aren't doomed. There's a sense of redemption biding its time to spring from the adversity of those failures, and it reminds us, looking back, that it never really was the "rewards" of the grind that kept us going on in the first place. Unless those rewards were the despondency that comes with defeat, there'd be hardly any resilience on display from people like Ben, Cam, Rachel and the rest of those sharing their dogged camaraderie. The easy breathing wit of a show like "How To Make It In America" comes from the acknowledgement that these people are addicted to their work, their assets, their sense of purpose. The unapologetic nature of each day might bring them to their knees, but they meet it with warm embrace, and an endearing smile.
New York city eats its young, alright. What keeps us watching is the impression that maybe these guys have what it takes to slice their way out of its stomach, and keep right on moving.
2010 marked a year in which publicity and mass marketing momentum alone could have given away the results of the Oscars, and we saw the honors placed in the hands of, well - those we came to expect. The night generated quite a bit of discomfort - first from its humdrum delivery of atypically lame comedic material from co-hosts Steve Martin and Alec Baldwin - and later from its injudicious exaltation of a certain "Best Original Screenplay". Winner of the honor and former Playboy writer Mark Boal's association with Best Picture winner "The Hurt Locker" must have been the only credentials needed to garner him an award in a category in which he was sufficient, yes, but top contender? I digress. The aforementioned, along with the passing over of "Up In The Air" for Geoffrey Fletcher's adaptation of "Precious" were the two more startling upsets of the night. In retrospect, perhaps I should have chosen that very well-done, intrinsically good script over what seemed would be a case of Academy favoritism on behalf of Jason Reitman. In this regard, I'm glad the Academy's verdict did not reflect my projection. At least this much I will admit.
On a relative scale, the results of my predictions proved to fare considerably solid, with the exception of my calling of the few ravaged works that provided the more ignoble and dare I say inglourious upsets. With all due respect - and remember I'm saying it with all due respect - Mr. Boal's screenplay award was based solely on the hype of this film, not the core qualifications of a true recipient. The award is "Best ORIGINAL Screenplay", not "Best Screenplay For A Film That Will Win Best Picture". My final results: 16/24.
*All categories marked with an asterisk are the ones I predicted correctly:
Best Picture
Winner: "The Hurt Locker" - Kathryn Bigelow, Mark Boal, Nicolas Chartier, Greg Shapiro
*Best Director
Winner: Kathryn Bigelow for "The Hurt Locker"
*Best Actress
Winner: Sandra Bullock for "The Blind Side"
*Best Actor
Winner: Jeff Bridges for "Crazy Heart"
Best Foreign Film
Winner: "El secreto de sus ojos" (Argentina)
*Best Film Editing
Winner: "The Hurt Locker" - Bob Murawski, Chris Innis
*Best Documentary
Winner: "The Cove" - Louie Psihoyos, Fisher Stevens
*Best Visual Effects
Winner: "Avatar" - Joe Letteri, Stephen Rosenbaum, Richard Baneham, Andy Jones
*Best Original Score
Winner: Up - Michael Giacchino
*Best Cinematography
Winner: "Avatar" - Mauro Fiore
Best Sound Mixing
Winner: "The Hurt Locker" - Paul N.J. Ottosson, Ray Beckett
*Best Sound Editing
Winner: "The Hurt Locker" - Paul N.J. Ottosson
*Best Costume Design
Winner: "The Young Victoria" - Sandy Powell
*Best Art Direction
Winner: "Avatar" - Rick Carter, Robert Stromberg, Kim Sinclair
*Best Supporting Actress
Winner: Mo'Nique for "Precious: Based on the Novel Push by Sapphire"
Best Adapted Screenplay
Winner: "Precious: Based on the Novel "Push by Sapphire" - Geoffrey Fletcher
*Best Makeup
Winner: "Star Trek" - Barney Burman, Mindy Hall, Joel Harlow
Best Live Action Short Film
Winner: "The New Tenants" - Joachim Back, Tivi Mangusson
Best Documentary Short
Winner: "Music by Prudence" - Roger Ross Williams, Elinor Burkett
Best Animated Short Film
Winner: "Logorama" - Nicolas Schmerkin
Best Original Screenplay:
Winner: "The Hurt Locker" - Mark Boal
*Best Original Song
Winner: "The Weary Kind" from "Crazy Heart" - T-Bone Burnett, Ryan Bingham
*Best Animated Feature
Winner: "Up" - Pete Docter
*Best Supporting Actor
Winner: Christoph Waltz for "Inglourious Basterds"
Tell me you've decided to see "The Crazies", and I will introduce it simply like this: Watch at your own risk. Sounds scary enough, right? Well, at any rate, at least I was frightened - frightened of the implications of the brains of its viewers as perceived by its makers, frightened of the dreadful path on which much of the horror-genre is carelessly meandering. Its makers frighten me, in how dishonorably they try to capitalize on the most un-frightening of things. Its scenes, much like countless other incompetent remakes of its kind, relish in the strategy that if you wait long enough in silence, the payoff of a jumpy and startling shot of the enemy's face out of the shadows - or even the hand of the protagonist from behind - will serve in providing some sort of cheap, soulless thrill. If "The Crazies"' intention was to scare me, it didn't. Watch at the risk of lowering your standards of what a gritty, genuine "B" movie like its 1973 original should be, or worse - at the risk of surgically removing any shred of a raw sense of danger in a film that boasts to have exactly that.
From the start, we get a taste of poor David Dutton (Timothy Olyphant)'s shabby, lackluster life. He's killed a man (during a little league baseball game, of all times!) with the gut instinct that that man is drunk and is going to kill him. Later, David's wife Judy (Radha Mitchell) consoles him in obligatory boo-hoo scenes of post murder soul searching. Mitchell's work as Judy is mundane and highly lacking in the kind of sweetness I'd expect in a wife to a man struggling with that kind of guilt. Though, I suppose we must feel sorry for her, after all she is pregnant.
From there, we are presented with an intriguing idea, a paranoia filled premise that attempts to explore the fear of government conspiracy and lack of information available to its characters. That prospect is quickly compromised when writers Scott Kosar and Ray Wright expose us to another upsetting slew of cheaply employed cliches. David desperately implores the town mayor to shut down the town, for fear of its residents' safety. Clearly Kosar and Wright are loving disciples of "Jaws", but they only knew the words, not the music. This is the case here and throughout, an effort scarce in style and really uninspired.
Director Breck Eisner asks us to endure and empathize through a journey with characters we don't care much about. Gas-masked army men separate mothers and their children away from each other in a scene that takes itself far too seriously given its buildup. "Honey, look - there's somebody outside!". Are David and his poor, pregnant wife dead yet? Yes? No? Who cares, at least I can leave now.
Horror, with all of its extremities, has an array of devices it may use to gain rise from its viewers: convincing visual magic, gore, humor, eccentricity, fun dialogue and pacing, observation, methodology, originality, surprise. "The Crazies" is a film which shamefully uses none of these. In fact, its disclaimer, if it had one, should read something like: "Any marketing schemes for 'The Crazies' that possess the uncanny audacity to even mention George A. Romero's name in its ads for this shameful remake principally undermine his likeness altogether. Watch at your own risk". Now, the only worse advertising crime I could fathom would be the usage of those words "Watch at your own risk" throughout its ad campaign as a positive, even if such a warning is warranted in watching.
★☆☆☆☆ (1/5)
Cast & Credits
Sheriff: Timothy Olyphant Judy : Radha Mitchell Deputy: Joe Anderson Becca: Danielle Panabaker Deardra: Christie Lynn Smith Bill: Brett Rickaby Nicholas: Preston Bailey Mayor: John Aylward
Overture presents a film directed by Breck Eisner. Written by Scott Kosar and Ray Wright based on the 1973 film by George A. Romero. Running time: 101 minutes.Rated R (for bloody violence and language).
