Archive for December, 2007

  • 01 Dec

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    Review: Awake

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    Awake poster

    Director: Joby Harold
    Writer: Joby Harold
    Producers: Jason Kilot, Jason Kliot, John Penotti, Joana Vicente
    Starring: Hayden Christiansen, Jessica Alba, Terrence Howard, Lena Olin
    MPAA Rating: R
    Running time: 84 min.

    What is wrong with Hayden Christiansen? It’s no wonder he’s accused by the general movie-going audience of being a terrible actor. It’s when he picks scripts like this that do him no justice, when cinemaphiles know he is capable of so much more (Factory Girl, Shattered Glass, Life as a House). Likewise with Terrence Howard. I wanted to reach into the screen and strangle some sense into both of them.

    Awake is the story of a rich and fairly powerful young man (Christiansen) with a heart condition. He’s been on the donor’s list for a new heart for months and just keeps waiting and waiting. Meanwhile, he’s got a company to run, a fiancée (Alba) who is upset with him for not telling his overbearing mother (Olin) that they are engaged and the memories (or lack thereof) and legacy of a dead father to live up to. When a heart is finally available, he’s whisked off to surgery for an immediate transplant. Problem is, the general anesthesia paralyzes him well enough, but he’s really still awake and can hear all around him and worse yet, can feel the pain of the scalpel cutting him open.

    To me, this sounds like a potentially interesting storyline. Maybe something you might find from an Asian horror director or adapted from a Stephen King novel. Except for the fact the surgery doesn’t even take place until about 30 minutes left in the film. The entire running length of the movie is wasted with Christiansen and Alba chatting about their upcoming marriage and trying to hide it. Useless dialogue between Howard and Christiansen to let us know they are friends. It’s very noticeable and frustrating because it seems like nothing interesting seems to ever be happening.

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  • 01 Dec

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    Review: Domino

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    Domino poster

    Director: Tony Scott (Man on Fire, Crimson Tide, Beverly Hills Cop II, Top Gun)
    Writer: Steve Barancik (The Last Seduction)
    Screenplay:Richard Kelly (Donnie Darko, Southland Tales)
    Producers: Tony Scott, Ridley Scott, Samuel Hadida
    Starring: Keira Knightly, Mickey Rourke, Edgar Rodriguez, Christopher Walken
    MPAA Rating: R
    Running time: 127 min.

    Clearly I have issues. Whatever the critics hate, I tend to like. Whatever they love, I think it is over-rated; and the critics are hating this one. It’s most certainly a dude movie. Lots of over the top fighting and explosions. Fast talking, slick dialogue full of “F yous” and “I’ll crush your skull” threats. It’s a lot like Desperado would be had it been directed by Guy Ritchie (Snatch, Lock Stock) or maybe Oliver Stone.

    Keira Knightley is Domino HarveyKeira Knightly plays the title role in this one. Giving up her innocense of her previous films like Bend it Like Beckham, Love Actually or Pirates of the Carribean. She’s cut her hair in true punk fashion, tattooed herself everywhere, and given up the soccer ball and cute smiles for switch-blades, nun-chuks and sawed off shotguns. It is the implausibly true story of model turned bounty hunter, Domino Harvey. Daughter of famed Hollywood actor, Laurence Harvey, Domino goes a little “hay-wire” after his death. Knightly explains the character this way, “I did very briefly [meet the real Domino] once way before we started filming. And originally, I kind of thought that it’d be really interesting to just play her totally and I’d do the voice and I’d do everything. Then I sort of met her and heard all her stories which were amazing, but although this is totally inspired by her and by her character, it isn’t true to her story. So I sort of thought, ‘Okay, well, seeing as we’re not completely telling her story, it gives me a sort of freedom to actually do what I want.’”

    It is a pretty straight forward, simple story with emphasis much more on style than depth. Crazy, quick editing and saturated lens filters make for a real surreal experience. The jittery camerawork and A.D.D. style editing can bring you to the brink of insanity if you’re not ready for an intense ride. The reason I mentioned Oliver Stone is the use of so many different types of film styles used: flashbacks, slow-motion, grain, timelapse photography and weird color filters. It’s reminicent of Natural Born Killers that way. Not to mention the not-so-subtle undertone of media over-kill in this story.

    Ramirez and RourkeShe joins up with a couple of real bad-asses in Ed (Rourke) and Choco (Rodriguez) and becomes a real bad-ass herself. Together they become notorious bounty hunters that get in a little over their heads. Rourke, who was also my favorite charcter in this past summer’s Sin City, played a similar guy in Domino: a person with whom not to mess, to put it mildly. I love those type of charcters…just super-cool. A few cameos you will notice from musicians to former teen stars make the film a little more fun.

    Add to that all of the cool guns and cool characters, and you have a blast of an actioner with an entertainment value of near priceless. Notice I said cool characters, not necessarily good characters. Which is what I liked about the aforementioned Desperado. A lot of unsavory characters that I would like to hang out with for stories, but without getting within twenty feet of them for fear for my safety.

    At first I was real excited to see this movie, then I saw the horrible rating it had at Rotten Tomatoes, and my expectations fell through the floor. I think partly that’s why I enjoyed it so much. It took me for a better ride than I thought it would, and it made me realize how much I like Tony Scott films. He’s directed some real doozies in the past and Domino is no exception.

  • 01 Dec

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    Gary Oldman Will Sing A Christmas Carol

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    Gary OldmanThere have been dozens of adaptations of Charles Dickens’s A Christmas Carol over the years – as early as 1916 and as recent as 2004. It’s been modernized, Muppetized, and even Fred Flinstoned, but it’s such a timeless story, I suspect that adaptations will continue to be made until the end of time.

    While another adaptation isn’t something I’m going to get particularly giddy about, even if it’s going to be a motion-capture venture directed by Robert Zemeckis and starring Jim Carrey as Ebenezer Scrooge, my interest can be piqued when I hear Gary Oldman has signed on. Which has happened. Which is why my interest in now piqued.

    There is no word yet on who Gary Oldman will be playing, but I’m crossing my fingers that it’s Bob Cratchit. Oldman would be fantastic as the despondent, down on his luck employee of Scrooge (plus, if he doesn’t play Cratchit, it probably means he has a very small part, which wouldn’t be cool). Moviehole claims that Oldman will be playing multiple characters though – much like Carrey, who is also playing the three Ghosts of Christmas. So, who knows?

    As great as Oldman is in literally everything he does, this leaves me wishing he’d take on more leading roles, but lately, he seems happier taking on the roles of supporting characters, adding layers of depth to them that few other actors could. Granted, throughout his whole career he’s taken on smaller character-driven parts that he’s made more than memorable (Leon, comes to mind), but he also balanced his choices out. The closest he’s come to an actual leading role in the past few years was Backwoods, a movie co-starring Paddy Considine. Oldman brought so much to a character that was more than likely so flat on paper and it really made me yearn for Oldman to once again carry a whole film on his back, because the man is incomparable. If you watch the man act, if you watch the way he masters each and every accent, and literally transforms himself in each film, yet not in a limelight consuming way, it’s hard to deny that he’s one of the finest actors working, one of the finest ever even, and I’d place him right alongside the likes of Daniel Day-Lewis. He had a few down on his luck years (as recent as 2003 and 2004) where he had made a couple of straight-to-DVD action movies, so maybe his confidence as a leading man is a little low, but I don’t think that’s the case. I’m not sure what it is, but hopefully within the next few years we get to see him back taking on projects like Immortal Beloved, Prick Up Your Ears, and Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead, where we can see him shine in every scene. I’m just throwing this out there, but Gary, if Guy Pearce drops out of negotiations for the adaptation of Cormac McCarthy’s The Road, you should make a few phone calls. I’m just saying.

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