Independent Research

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Is Steven Spielberg’s Lincoln Really a Modern Masterpiece?

13 November 2012

Picture: Steven Spielberg, Daniel Day-LewisAFI Fest - 'Lincoln' - Premiere at...

Is Steven Spielberg’s Lincoln Really a Modern Masterpiece?

Steven Spielberg’s Lincoln has certainly attracted the sort of attention that usually precedes pretty successful awards seasons. Gladiator, The Kings Speech, The Departed; just a couple of the big budget, big name movies to sweep the Oscars having courted high praise from critics towards the end of the year.

Lincoln – a biopic of America’s 16^th President played with aplomb by Daniel Day Lewis – appears to be Spielberg’s finest film in years, but is that good? In a blog on The Huffington Post, David Edmund Moody pulled out the M-word. Yep, the M-word. Calling Lincoln a “modern masterpiece,” though somewhat patronisingly warning, “…this film is not for the masses. It is too rich and complex, the pace too leisurely, the dialogue too intricate and subtle, to reach the audience it deserves. Time will tell whether it deserves a place next to City Lights and Citizen Kane.” Still, it’s good to known that Spielberg is coming up with something packing a little more substance than say Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull or even the tame War Horse. A.O Scott of the New York Times heaped praise on the movie and Spielberg’s direction, writing, “To say that this is among the finest films ever made about American politics may be to congratulate it for clearing a fairly low bar,” while Kenneth Turan of the Los Angeles Times wrote, “There is nothing bravura or overly emotional about Spielberg's direction here, but the impeccable filmmaking is no less impressive for being quiet and to the point.” Much of the praise is firmly directed in Day-Lewis’ direction – a superb actor known for choosing his roles wisely. Reports suggest he was reluctant to sign on to the epic tale, though his performance has left bookmakers all but paying out on him landing the Oscar for Best Actor in February 2012. Peter Travers of Rolling Stone said, “The phenomenal Daniel Day-Lewis plays Lincoln with immersive, indelible power in Spielberg's brilliant, brawling epic.”

                                        Brothers in Arms: Daniel Day-Lewis and Steven Spielberg at the Lincoln Premiere

Sally Field is second favorite behind Jennifer Lawrence for Best Actress, while the movie itself prowls at around 4/1 to win Best Picture. Ben Affleck’s Argo may well be the market leader, though the aging Academy probably won’t be able to resist a combination of Lincoln, Spielberg and Day Lewis.

Spielberg received a standing ovation at the movie’s premiere last week, later telling The Hollywood Reporter, “What we wanted to do with our film, more than anything else, we wanted to try and see Lincoln…We wanted to try and invite him down from his marble pedestal to see past his many after lives and not to worship him but to understand him close up, as much as possible - to meet him as the person and politician he actually was.” After a limited opening last week, the movie will be in theaters everywhere from Friday (November 16, 2012).

‘Skyfall’ Returns to ‘Bond’ Roots

November 19, 2012 By Dr. Joseph A. Yeager

 

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Quantum of Solace, the 22nd film in the venerable James Bond series, was arguably the most innovative of them all. Rejecting the ethos that defined Bond’s universe from Ian Fleming’s Casino Royale, published in 1953, to its cinematic incarnation in 2006, Quantum of Solace presented a bleak, manichean view of geopolitics wherein a greedy West, with willing assistance from a shadowy organization called Quantum, plundered an innocent and helpless third world. There were bows to Marxism, broadsides against capitalism, and shots across the bridge of the CIA.
Suffice it to say Quantum of Solace wore its cynical politics on its sleeve. A red sleeve.
But the ideology of the politics was less innovative than their mere introduction.

Bond films had always been notable for their apolitical tone. Born in 1962, the very apogee of the Cold War, Bond films nevertheless largely steered clear of political shoals. Yes, James Bond, the “Queen’s loyal terrier,” was basically patriotic and the Soviet Union was sometimes obliquely depicted as inimical, but by the standards of the age, politics were conspicuously muted.

That all changed with Quantum of Solace. And it changed in a postcolonial, postmodern manner that would not have pleased founding producers Cubby Broccoli and Harry Saltzman, let alone Ian Fleming, the man who authored it all.
Longstanding Bond observers surely wondered, had current producers Michael G. Wilson and Barbara Broccoli, under the influence of Paul Haggis and Marc Forster, permanently turned James Bond against queen and country? (Historian Juan Cole gleefully suggested something to that effect.)
But Skyfall, the follow-up to Quantum of Solace, answers the query with a thunderous no.
Skyfall’s plot, for the film’s first half, is murky and nebulous. We learn that villains of some sort have acquired a list of Western agents embedded in terrorist organizations around the globe. We see those agents exposed, to mortal effect, on Youtube. And we witness a bomb blast at MI6 headquarters. But as they used to say in old England, what was it all in aid of?
The shroud is lifted after agent 007 and his MI6 cohort capture arch-foe Raoul Silva (Javier Bardem) and extradite him to the UK. Under interrogation, Silva relates his past as an MI6 agent in Hong Kong where, under orders from intelligence chief M (Judi Dench), he was hung out to dry, captured by the Chinese and tortured forte et dure. Silva attempted suicide by crushing a cyanide capsule lodged in a tooth, but the poison, rather than kill its consumer, merely scarred and disfigured him, physically and mentally.
Silva then, unhinged by the experience, has himself become a cyberterrorist bent on murdering M and destroying the organization she controls. From this point on, Skyfall offers a chiseled, linear and straightforward quest for revenge by Silva, coupled to James Bond’s exhaustive and frenzied efforts to thwart and destroy the malign shade of missions past.

Director Sam Mendes realizes the tale at a very high level. While Skyfall drags slightly in the middle, the tension and suspense mount exponentially and resolve in a slam-bang ending that is equal parts action and tragedy. The post-climax coda is a bittersweet and valedictory brew tinctured with optimistic revivification. It all packs a whipsawing wallop of conflicting emotions calculated to leave the audience with a certain sense of pride and good cheer.
Skyfall is a beautifully crafted film. Its cinematography, in contrast to that of Quantum of Solace, leans to the beautiful and the picturesque. Aerial shots of Shanghai at night are breathtaking and contrast powerfully with the stark Scottish landscape where the final pitched battle occurs.
The editing is old school. Contra Quantum of Solace, scenes unfold in a leisurely manner and cameras linger. Even the action sequences, jolting as they are, nevertheless do not disorient through rapid-fire, chaotic edits, as they did in Skyfall’s predecessor.
Acting in Skyfall is top-class. Daniel Craig, already the last word in Bondian toughness, manages to ratchet up his hard-bitten masculinity yet another notch.
Bardem’s Silva will go down in Bond lore as the creepiest villain in series history to date. Silva is an entirely different personality from No County for Old Men’s legendary Anton Chiguhr, but inspires a similar unease and dread.
The criminally underutilized Berenice Marlohe, in the role of distressed dame Severine, delivers a quirkily spellbinding performance. Her giddily terrified interchange with Bond in a Macao casino may be the highlight of the film.
Dame Judi Dench, in her final—and most extensive—turn as M, departs on a note that will draw attention from Oscar voters. She is careworn and fragile, yet also pugnacious and determined. It is an appealing and highly sympathetic performance that sets the audience up for heartbreak rarely realized so powerfully in action and adventure films.
But Skyfall’s unmistakable rejection of the astigmatic pathos and the pernicious self-loathing found in Quantum of Solace is what defines this film.
Skyfall is unabashedly patriotic. Bond, confronted by a mocking Silva, cockily tosses his love of country in the villain’s face. Union Jacks fly. The English bulldog, the four-legged twin of Winston Churchill and talismanic symbol of British tenacity, features prominently. Hence, a ceramic bulldog improbably survives the explosion in M’s MI6 office. M wills the bulldog to Bond. When Bond unwrapped M’s symbolic bequest, the audience in my west Texas theatre erupted in cheers and applause. One can only imagine the response in England itself.
Skyfall venerates tradition and it honors the aged. Bond is twice labeled old-fashioned and on both occasions accepts the jibe as a badge of pride. Judi Dench, the septuagenarian warhorse, is every bit as heroic as Bond himself. What’s more, she pairs with an equally elderly Kincade (Albert Finney) at Bond’s childhood home (named Skyfall), as silver tigers pitched against Silva and his battalion of young cyber-savages. The homage to a generation rapidly disappearing is as touching as it is unthinkable had Quantum of Solace been the template for future Bond films.
Skyfall is an archaizing, historically literate Bond film. The Reformation is mentioned in the context of Bond’s childhood estate of Skyfall. Winston Churchill is referenced when MI6, hoping to avoid another attack from Silva, relocates to the ancient subterranean passages of London. M quotes verses from Tennyson. Adele’s portentous title track could have been written for Shirley Bassey or Nancy Sinatra. Bond pulls his 1964 Aston Martin out of mothballs to spirit M away to Skyfall. He shaves—and is shaved—with a straight razor. The new Moneypenny (Naomie Harris) states that sometimes the old ways are better. Bond’s most technologically sophisticated gadget is a radio transmitter. A monocle and a trilby would not have gone amiss.
This film, much like Fleming’s novels published in austere, post-war Great Britain, is powerful medicine for British spirits at low ebb. Skyfall suggests that Great Britain’s past should not be scorned and reviled. On the contrary, there is much in the nation’s history and traditional culture that should be admired and even revived. For a people steeped in the rituals of masochistic flagellation, Skyfall is a corrective absolution. It is a gift to the people of the United Kingdom.
The 23^rd instantiation of cinematic James Bond leaves the series with a new roster of dramatis personae. In addition to the above-mentioned Harris in the role of Moneypenny, Ralph Fiennes moves into Dench’s seat as M, and Ben Whishaw revives the role of Q made famous by Desmond Llewellyn. James Bond is thus recharged, rearmed and poised to extend his astonishing half-century run. It’s not out of the question that he could outlive the nation that gave him birth. Then again, the new, old James Bond offers hints for how to revive and prolong Britannia. It is up to the Brits to listen.






Nicholas Cage to Star in New “Left Behind” Movie?

Monday, October 22, 2012, 11:43 AM

Matthew Schmitz | @matthewschmitz

Nicolas Cage is in negotiations to topline “Left Behind,” a mainstream reboot of the Christian-themed movie trilogy that will mark the first film from Stoney Lake Entertainment, a new production company led by Paul Lalonde of faith-oriented banner Cloud Ten Pictures.
The “Left Behind” franchise is based on the series of books written by Tim LaHaye and Jerry Jenkins that have sold more than 65 million copies worldwide.
Lalonde will produce the action thriller with Michael Walker, and co-write the script with John Patus, who wrote 2005′s “Left Behind: World at War.” Veteran stunt coordinator and second unit director Vic Armstrong (“Army of One”) is in talks to direct.

http://www.firstthings.com/blogs/firstthoughts/2012/10/22/nicholas-cage-to-star-in-new-left-behind-movie/

Guest Post: Cloud Atlas’ Postmodern Take On Freedom

By Zack Beauchamp on Nov 2, 2012 at 6:04 pm

“All boundaries are conventions, waiting to be transcended,” intones one of Cloud Atlas’ ubiquitous voiceovers. It sounds trite or, worse, meaningless, a point the film’s harsher critics have delighted in making. But for all of Cloud Atlas‘ bombastic presentation, its actual argument is a subtle meditation on the tortured relationship between power and emancipation, one that marries two seemingly inconsistent approaches to the world into a novel notion of human freedom. That the film dunks this argument in a vat of sentimentality obscures the point, but it’s there. And it’s entrancing.

The movie’s six interconnected stories, spanning the 19th century to a post-apocalyptic future, all share a habit of conveying the movie’s basic moral point — everyone should help each other be free! — in the cinematic equivalent of all caps. I, for one, was delighted by this, but I can see why others might complain that this isn’t much intellectual heft for a movie purporting to be about ideas. But there’s a danger in assuming any movie’s most obvious message is the only thing has to say. Cloud Atlas is a case in point.

Take the plot centering on Adam Ewing, a pre-Civil War lawyer stuck on a merchant vessel in the Pacific Ocean. In a certain sense, it’s the bluntest moral arc in the film — through his friendship with escaped slave Autua, Ewing goes from chatting about racist theories of history at the dinner table to abandoning his father-in-law’s slavetrading business in favor of a life as an abolitionist activist. Your garden-variety contemporary American morality tale, right?

On the surface, yes, but the ways in which Autua’s struggle prompts Ewing’s evolution betrays a nuanced understanding of what it means to have power over another person and when it’s right to use it. Autua convinces Ewing to help him stow away on the ship not by a direct, simple appeal to their shared humanity — indeed, he tries that and it fails. Rather, Autua takes out a knife and puts it to his own throat, demanding Ewing slit it rather than leave him to the more terrible death that stowaways face after they are, inevitably, discovered. Forced to confront the fact that his inaction will kill Autua as surely, and more horribly, than murdering him, Ewing feels compelled to become Autua’s advocate. Autua survives not by killing Ewing or winning him over with words, but by embracing the desperation of his own situation. Autua found power in his own seeming powerlessness.

If this analysis of power sounds familiar, that’s because it’s straight out of influential social theorist Michel Foucault’s work. Foucault’s mantra is that “power is fluid,” by which he means that it’s a mistake to think that force, constraint, and privilege are the only avenues to change the world. In his view, the power to change the world can be found anywhere; those who seem beaten down often have unexpected and unpredictable ways to turn the tables. But there’s a dark side as well — because power (understood as the ability to direct the behavior of others) is everywhere in human interactions, it also can constrain those who believe themselves to be free. Methods of domination, for Foucault, can often be as unexpected and invisible as opportunities for freedom.

Foucault’s understanding of power is nearly omnipresent in Cloud Atlas; many of the stories critically involve finding power in unexpected places. Robert Frobisher, the brilliant gay composer, escapes his debts by becoming an assistant to the more famous Vyvyan Ayrs. The relationship appears to be mutually beneficial; a friendship built on deep intellectual appreciation of music. But that move ends up trapping Frobisher further, as Ayrs exploits Frobisher’s dependence on him to demand the younger composer credit Ayrs with his original work or else be ruined. Frobisher’s response, an escape to finish his work and then suicide, is the film’s only tragic ending, but nonetheless a small victory in the sense that we see in 1975 that Frobisher succeeded in claiming his masterpiece.

The other stories, excepting the formulaic 70s detective yarn, are suffused with an optimistic Foucaultian idea that unexpected wells of power allow for liberation from overt repression. In the 22nd century’s corporate-totalitarian Korea, Sonmi-451, a member of a genetically engineered slave class destined for industrialized murder, delivers a political address that’s forceful both for its content and because it upends the expectations of what eloquence and insight someone considered subhuman can marshal. In post-apocalyptic Hawaii, we see that Sonmi won, her message of hope of shared humanity becoming a holy writ for the people who survived beyond the fall of Neo Seoul. Likewise, book publisher Timothy Cavendish escapes his authoritarian nursing home (itself a rather Foucaultian idea) by playing on his oppressors’ expectation that the elderly are liable to keel over to set a trap for the brutal Nurse Noakes. Perceived weakness once again becomes a source of strength.

Notice that in each of these stories, the goal of the protagonists is the same — a desire for freedom that remains constant throughout time and space. This quite overt theme evokes nothing more than Francis Fukuyama’s End of History, who believed that what people wanted, at their core, was recognition as equals by others. For Fukuyama (and Cloud Atlas), people across time have always wanted others to treat them and their desires as worthy of respect, which means giving them the freedom to pursue their dreams. Human nature is at its core a desire to be free. Cloud Atlas represents this abstract idea quite literally, by taking six stories involving people of different races, classes, and genders, and making every hero’s quest about freeing themselves and others from bondage and oppression.

Ironically, Foucault condemned thinkers like Fukuyama that believed in a constant human nature. For Foucault, freedom came from “never [accepting anything as definitive…No aspect of reality should be allowed to become a definitive and inhuman law for us.” The notion of a universal human nature was dangerous, something that had historically been used to control and dominate people that don’t fit the model. So Cloud Atlas, then, is doing something quite ambitious – attempting to sympathize two competing strains of 20th century thought into one consistent strain; developing, in essence, a universal Foucaultian theory of human freedom, opposed by the declarations from Hugo Weaving’s various villains that “there is a natural order to things” where one group of people control the fates of the rest. That’s hardly the intellectually anemic film some critics would have you think!

This intellectual framework can help us understand Cloud Atlas’ most controversial feature: its casting of actors to play characters of races and genders not their own. It’s not for me, a white man, to determine whether or not the directors succeeded in handling this in a way that’s appropriately sensitive to the fraught history surrounding (for example) yellowface. But given that the directors say they were inspired by Foucault, I can understand what they were aiming for, even if they didn’t achieve it. Foucault believed sexual identities were social constructs, notions produced by culture rather than biology. Several thinkers, most famously Edward Saidand Judith Butler, haves used Foucault’s arguments about sexuality to argue that race and gender were similarly imposed on people rather than natural parts of their identity. Casting actors outside their “normal” race and gender could seem a pretty powerful way of pointing out the artificiality (from a Foucaultian point of view) of these categories, even though it might slight the very real value that many people derive from the gender and racial identity.

And it’s easy to see why Lana Wachowski, in particular, would see this move principally as liberatory rather than offensive. While the film was being created, Lana herself was famously undergoing gender transition, a concept she herself hesitates to use because of “its complicity in a binary gender dynamic that I am not particularly comfortable with.” As Lana explains, the experience of being locked into conventional gender boundaries felt like imprisonment: “I couldn’t find anyone like me in the world and it seemed that my dreams were foreclosed simply because my gender was less typical than others.” To someone with that experience, playing with actors’ gender and race seems like a way of telling others who felt their dreams were foreclosed by socially imposed categories that they were not alone; that there was a world where people could be free to define themselves however they want. Gender and race bending in this context helped, from her point of view, the quest for respect and freedom in Fukuyama’s sense.

But here, the film’s extraordinary ambition may have caused it to run aground. While Lana can speak with authority with respect to Cloud Atlas‘ genderbending, its racebending is a different kettle of fish. The film doesn’t take the time to draw a clear distinction between experiencing race and gender as categories, and hence may not have treated each with the subtlety and respect they deserve even if the filmmakers had the best of intentions. Again, that’s not for me to say.

That serious caveat noted, I can appreciate, and even revel in, the film’s intellectual ambition. Marrying two opposing intellectual traditions and challenging conventional gender boundaries is more than one can hope for in a graduate thesis, let alone a three hour film. That Cloud Atlas could make a compelling stab at both while at the same time delivering some real emotional gutpunches is nothing short of extraordinary.

 http://thinkprogress.org/alyssa/2012/11/02/1117541/guest-post-cloud-atlas-postmodern-take-on-freedom/?mobile=nc

Impressively Directed Fight Scenes (and Much Swagger)Movie Review By Caitlin Hughes on November 2, 2012 |

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A movie like The Man With The Iron Fists, with the tagline of “They put the F.U. in Kung Fu,” can really go either way. While such a tagline promises some cool fight scenes and much bad-assery, do the goods stop there? Also, can RZA from The Wu-Tang Clan direct? Hell yes, RZA can direct! While the film does lag at around the three-quarter mark, not only are its fight scenes awesome and bloody, but they are creatively shot and have great cinematography. This, in combine with a gleefully clever and referential script co-written by RZA and Eli Roth, make for a fun film that fits nicely within the film’s “presentor,” Quentin Tarantino’s, postmodernist pantheon. After all, there’s even a cameo from Pam Grier.

The film tells many stories, with all converging as various parties become involved in the seizure of the governor’s gold in the fictional town of Jungle Village in 19th Century China. Also one of the film’s main actors, RZA is the Blacksmith who forges high-quality weaponry for Jungle City’s various vicious gangs. Because, at the beginning of the film anyway, Blacksmith is able to provide a fairly omniscient narration as he is privy to all of the gang’s violent activities. Blacksmith is in love with the beautiful prostitute, Silk (Jamie Chung), who lives in The Pink Blossom brothel, run by the fiercely independent Madam Blossom (Lucy Liu). They are trying to save up enough money to blow town together, but Blacksmith is sidelined after the leader of the Lion Gang, Golden Lion (Kuan Tai Chen), is killed by his own as he is protecting the governor’s gold. Blacksmith must make weapons for the gangs as this overthrow by Silver Lion (Byron Mann) sets off a gang war as gangs fight to the death for ownership of the prized gold.

Blacksmith eventually joins forces with Gold Lion’s son Zen Yi, “The X-Blade” (Rick Yune), so named because of his suit of knives, and the lusty British emissary Jack Knife (Russell Crowe, in a wonderfully cheeky performance) as they try to avenge Golden Lion’s death and get the gold back to it’s rightful owners. A complication occurs when Blacksmith is captured by Silver Lion’s men and the seemingly indestructible Brass Body (David Bautista), so named because his body turns to brass when pummeled, cuts off Blacksmith’s arms. With Jack Knife’s aid, Blacksmith is resurrected, as he fashions “iron fists” that he controls is his innate “chi,” becoming the film’s eponymous hero.

Many fight scenes occur between the beginning and end of the film, and most are pretty spectacular. Arms are pulled out of the socket, people are cut in half, heads are kicked off bodies, necks are stabbed with shoe knives – the creative kills here are plenty. Borrowing from his mentor Tarantino, RZA combines a lot of different styles when shooting the fight scenes, running the gamut from black and white cinematography (accented by red blood), slo-mo action shots, even shooting a scene in a hall of mirrors. Perhaps the standout fight scene occurs toward the end of the film, as the prostitutes led by Madam Blossom, morph into the Black Widow gang and face off against the Lion Gang. One by one, the prostitutes seduce the gang members and stab them in the neck, subsequently tangling the survivors in web-like cloths and kicking much ass. This scene looks beautiful, also, with its vibrant pink background and shocks of color.

Performance-wise, the real standout here is Russell Crowe as Jack Knife. Hamming it up throughout, Crowe chews the hell out of the scenery as a robust man who bangs four prostitutes at a time, slices men named Crazy Hippo in half with his giant knife, and adds more butter to his dinners than Paula Deen would. Usually playing more slow-burn roles, Crowe really brings it in here in this departure of a role and makes you wish that he was in every scene. While almost playing a nicer version of her role in Kill Bill: Volume One, Lucy Liu also delivers in her sexualized, alpha female performance – she also excels at the fight scenes. RZA is somewhat lacking as an actor – he was probably better riffing off Bill Murray in Coffee and Cigarettes – but he’s just fine in this, really. The other actors act in an exaggerated fashion, as in real Kung Fu films, and that works here also.

The film does start to lose momentum around the three-quarter mark when we learn Blacksmith’s backstory and the action dies down, but picks it up in a big way at the end. Blacksmith’s past history as an escaped slave who landed in China grounds the film in history, which is almost at its detriment, since everything else about the film defies time and place. Nevertheless, The Man With The Iron Fists ultimately accomplishes what it set out to do, which was to “put the F.U. in Kung Fu,” to recreate a classic Kung Fu film and imbue it with gangsta swagger and kick ass action scenes. More importantly, as a filmmaker, RZA proves that he “ain’t nuthing ta fuck wit,” as he goes above and beyond expectations with his stylistic choices.

The Upside: Russell Crowe knocks it out of the ballpark as the awesomely named Jack Knife. Also, the fight scenes deliver in a big way.

The Downside: The film has a brief repose toward the end and would be somewhat better if it completely existed outside history.

On the side: In development, Quentin Tarantino and RZA had intentions of a crossover with the upcoming Django Unchained, but apparently RZA couldn’t make it work. Oh well!

 http://www.filmschoolrejects.com/reviews/the-man-with-the-iron-fists-review-chugh.php




MOVIE REVIEW: ‘Seven Psychopaths’
By Adam Mazmanian - Special to The Washington Times



Thursday, October 11, 2012


Writer-director Martin McDonagh (“In Bruges”) wants to have his darkly comic cake and eat it too with “Seven Psychopaths,” a gory bucket of blood that uses its postmodernist structure to hint at a deeper, counterintuitive meaning – maybe even a moral.

But despite a few great performances and entertaining set pieces, there is something deeply repulsive about this film. To my mind, “Seven Psychopaths” is itself a deeply psychopathic, pseudointellectual exercise in cinematic fakery that validates the bloodlust of its audience – a bit like telling a racist joke in the service of mocking the idea of racism.

It recalls screenwriter Charlie Kaufman’s “Adaptation,” in that a character in the movie is a screenwriter cursed with writer’s block. The twist in both films is that the events in the film’s narrative and the fictional screenplay converge, tearing down the proverbial fourth wall separating actors from the audience. The difference is that “Adaptation” uses the device as a way to connect viewers with the flawed, troubled inner life of the writer. But Marty (Colin Farrell), the alcoholic screenwriter in “Seven Psychopaths,” has no inner life. He’s a sponge, existing only to soak up others’ hard-won experience and wring it out for his own profit.

As a stand in for Mr. McDonagh, Marty is self-effacing but mostly flat. The movie gets its manic energy from his best friend Billy (Sam Rockwell), a hyperkinetic sidekick who wants Marty to change his life by drinking less, writing more and breaking up with his girlfriend Kaya(Abbie Cornish). Billy supports himself by working a dognapping scheme with Hans (Christopher Walken). They steal dogs, wait for the owner to put up signs offering a reward for the missing pet and then collect. The pair stumbles into deep trouble when they nab the very cute Shih Tzu of emotionally unhinged crime boss Charlie (Woody Harrelson). Charliereally wants his dog back, and he doesn’t especially care who he has to kill to get it.

The story tracks the collision between the search for the dog and Marty’s search for enough psychopaths to populate the screenplay he owes. Billy wants so much to help Marty that he shares stories about psychopaths from the newspapers and from people he knows. He even places an ad in a local alt-weekly that attracts Zachariah (Tom Waits), who tells the story of a coast-to-coast murder spree in which he and his wife preyed on serial killers.

Mr. Waits is compelling as the lovelorn killer who misses his former partner in crime. Mr. Rockwell delivers a rather astonishing performance as the unhinged, possibly deranged Billy. Mr. Walken walks a fine line, playing Hans as a man driven in equal measures by religion and revenge. Sometimes his slow-motion intonations sound like the words of a prophet; other times they sound like the world’s best Christopher Walken impression.

The shabbiness of “Seven Psychopaths” becomes more apparent once the set pieces are played out and the movie limps to its muddled conclusion. The snappy dialogue, recalling Quentin Tarantino’s “Pulp Fiction,” loses its edge, and the movie-within-a-movie references get lamer and harder to take.

Mr. McDonagh might have made an interesting, off-kilter genre movie, but “Seven Psychopaths” is undone by what might charitably be called unattained literary ambitions, and uncharitably tagged as raw cynicism and negativity.

★★

TITLE: “Seven Psychopaths”

CREDITS: Written and directed by Martin McDonagh

RATING: R for violence, language and nudity

RUNNING TIME: 109 minutes.

MAXIMUM RATING: FOUR STARS

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2012/oct/11/movie-review-seven-psychopaths/

Movie Review: The Keep (1983)

Happy Halloween everyone! In honor of my favorite holiday, here's a little review of a diabolically underrated "Nazis and Demons" 80's horror flick.  Directed by Michael Mann - yup, the same guy who did Heat, and Last of the Mohicans - this adaptation of an F. Paul Wilson novel of the same name revolves around a mysterious keep in the Romanian mountains in 1941. A band of German soldiers is sent to garrison the keep, but when they start being killed off by a mysterious force, they have to turn to a Jewish scholar to help them figure out what's going on. Much demonic horror and gore ensues...

It is unfortunate that this film hasn't, as far as I can tell, had a DVD release, because although it does have its flaws, it is certainly a far better film than a lot of the direct-to-DVD schlock that have been vomited out over the last decade. I suppose Mann might be embarrassed by it's rather poor performance at the box office and general panning by critics at the time, but honestly I don't think it's that bad for an 80's supernatural horror film. Despite this being one of his earliest theatrical works, Mann's eye for direction and strong stylistic sensibilities give the film some very striking visuals, and the score - performed by Tangerine Dream - adds to the feeling of surreal supernatural horror.

Right now, I think the only place you'll be able to find this film is on Netflix, but fortunately the transfer looks very good - it's clear they didn't just dupe this off of an old VHS tape. Performances by Scott Glen, Gabriel Byrne, Jurgen Prochnow, Ian Mckellen, and William Morgan Sheppard, among many others, are quite strong. If you have Netflix Instant available to you, I really suggest you give this film a try.

http://postmodernpulps.blogspot.co.uk/2012/10/movie-review-keep-1983.html

 

 

 

UK film industry worth £4.6bn in 2011, report suggests

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2 was the biggest film of 2011 at the UK box office

The UK film industry contributed more than £4.6bn towards the UK GDP (Gross Domestic Product) in 2011, according to an independent report.

It said the industry has "grown significantly" in the last 20 years.
The number of UK films has grown from an average of 43 in the 1980s to 136 in the 2000s, according to report author Oxford Economics, a global forecaster.
The economy was worth about £1.5 trillion in 2011, with UK film accounting for 0.3% of GDP last year.
The GDP is a measure of the value of goods and services produced in the economy.
The report said UK box office receipts hit a record high last year of £410m, boosted by films including Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2 and Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows, plus independent films such as The King's Speech and The Inbetweeners Movie.
'Long-term growth'
The most recent previous report on the film industry, also by Oxford Economics found that, in 2009, the core UK film industry contributed £4.5bn to UK GDP.
The 2012 report suggested the 2011 figures demonstrated that "despite the on-going recession the UK film industry is thriving".
It also stated the number of jobs the industry sustains has risen from 100,000 in 2009 to 117,400, while tourism generated by films depicting the UK was estimated to have contributed about £1bn to UK GDP.
"With a significant upward trajectory over the last 20 years, the overall picture for the UK film industry is of continued long-term growth," said the report, adding: "Growth outstrips the UK economy as a whole; there is significant and continued investment in infrastructure."
By comparison, another major contributor to the UK's creative industries is the music industry, which last year made £3.8bn, according to PRS For Music, which represents songwriters, composers and publishers.
Creative Industries minister Ed Vaizey said the film industry report "clearly highlights the huge contribution that the UK film industry makes to long-term economic growth".
"The UK's successes at the Bafta and Academy Awards celebrate the wonderful creative talents and accomplishments of UK film, but this report reminds us of the crucial role the industry plays in job creation, tourism, inward investment and the promotion of all that is great about Britain," he added.
The report, which is updated every two years, explored the following aspect of the British film industry:

• Jobs and skills
• Exports
• Tourism
• Inward investment
• Promoting British culture
• Merchandising
• New technologies

It also estimated that production would be 71% smaller without Film Tax Relief, which is suggested to cost HM Treasury about £114m per year, generating about £12 for every £1 invested.
Films that qualify for the relief are British films intended for commercial release in UK cinemas and of whose total production costs, at least 25% relate to activities in the UK.
"Without it [tax relief], national GDP would be reduced by approximately £1.4bn a year and Exchequer revenues by £430 million a year," the report stated.
Adrian Wootton, chief executive of Film London and the British Film Commission said: "The UK film industry has proved itself to be vital to the economy and that is something which should be celebrated, and of which we should be very proud."
The report was commissioned by the British Film Institute and Pinewood Shepperton plc, with support from the British Film Commission and Creative England.


http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-19623067