Tag Archives: drama

The Savages

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The Savages

 

The Sav­ages is the story of a frac­tured fam­ily, sep­a­rated not least by geog­ra­phy, that reunites on the occa­sion of an aged parent’s health. Both sib­lings haven’t seen their father in years, so what was prob­a­bly a slow decline seems to them a sud­den plunge into senil­ity. Both have their own prob­lems, and nei­ther is mature enough or equipped to care for their father. Who aban­doned whom?

Curi­ously, the two sib­lings have defined their lives by two very dif­fer­ent aspects of the the­ater: Wendy (Laura Lin­ney) is a frus­trated writer, end­lessly apply­ing for grants instead of actu­ally writ­ing. Rather, she brings a great deal of fic­tion into her every­day life: she man­u­fac­tures drama at every turn, not just with her lover but also with her own body (she has a mean case of hypochon­dria). She is def­i­nitely a nar­cis­sist; her lover is only slightly older than she, but to her he is an “older man.” Also, note her hys­ter­i­cal (in both senses of the word) ratio­nale for her belief that she is above an affair: “I have an M.F.A.”

savages1.jpgPhilip Sey­mour Hoff­man and Laura Lin­ney in The Savages

Her brother Jon (Philip Sey­mour Hoff­man) is a col­lege pro­fes­sor trapped in a per­pet­u­ally unfin­ished book ana­lyz­ing Brecht. Based on his atti­tude towards Wendy and her lover (a the­ater direc­tor), he evi­dently looks down on those that do the dirty busi­ness of actu­ally cre­at­ing theater.

In a coda, we see that both Jon and Wendy appear to have grown, and become unstuck in the careers and per­sonal lives. Unfor­tu­nately, the end­ing rings false, not in keep­ing with the tone of the events before it. Is writer/director Tamara Jenk­ins’ theme that the death of a par­ent is a final step­ping stone in grow­ing up? If so, how and why? As they did not wit­ness their father’s aging, the audi­ence did not wit­ness Wendy and Jon’s off­screen growth.

savages2.jpgLaura Lin­ney and Philip Bosco in The Savages

Two tal­ented Chrises make con­tri­bu­tions: Gbenga Akin­nagbe (Chris in HBO’s The Wire) appears as per­haps the most mature and sen­si­ble char­ac­ter in the film. And Chris Ware was an excel­lent choice to design the poster and DVD menus, for The Sav­ages would fit very nicely along­side his Acme Nov­elty Library comic book series.

Offi­cial movie site: www.foxsearchlight.com/thesavages

Buy the DVD from Ama­zon and kick back a few pen­nies to The Dork Report.

The Departed

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departed.jpg

 

Mar­tin Scors­ese works almost con­stantly, direct­ing doc­u­men­taries between each higher-profile fea­ture film. But the fre­quency of his fic­tion films is far enough apart for them to remain much more hotly antic­i­pated, and every year that went by with him being passed over by the Acad­emy Awards only more firmly estab­lished his sta­tus as a Great Amer­i­can Director.

Despite finally being the occa­sion of his long-overdue recog­ni­tion by the Acad­emy, The Departed prob­a­bly won’t be ranked among his more idio­syn­cratic and per­sonal films like Mean Streets, Rag­ing Bull, and Good­fel­las (not to men­tion his still-underappreciated films about reli­gious faith: The Last Temp­ta­tion of Christ and Kun­dun). The Departed is a remake of the 2002 Chi­nese thriller Infer­nal Affairs, and thus should actu­ally be cat­e­go­rized along­side Scorsese’s other star-studded remake, Cape Fear. Both are undoubt­edly stamped with Scorsese’s auteur touch, but still not among his most dis­tinc­tively per­sonal work.

The DepartedSo, Jack, what was Polan­ski really like?

See­ing the film for the sec­ond time, this time on the small screen, this Dork Reporter is struck by the extremely high energy and pace. Like Michael Mann’s Heat (an influ­ence on Infer­nal Affairs), the story con­cerns the par­al­lel nar­ra­tives of a cop — or should I say “cwawp” — (Leonardo DiCaprio as Billy Costi­gan) and a crim­i­nal (Matt Damon as Colin Sul­li­van). But unlike Mann’s stately pac­ing, Scors­ese keeps every scene remark­ably short and fran­ti­cally cross-cuts between the dual nar­ra­tives. Were Marty and edi­tor Thelma Schoon­maker chug­ging espres­sos in the edit­ing suite?

One aspect of the plot I still don’t fully under­stand: what exactly does crime boss Frank Costello (Jack Nichol­son) offer Colin to ensure such undy­ing loy­alty? It doesn’t seem enough that Frank pro­vided minor char­ity to Colin’s strug­gling fam­ily in his youth. What does Colin really owe him?

The DepartedSo, Jack, what was Anto­nioni really like?

But any nag­ging pac­ing or char­ac­ter issues are more than excused by the price­less repar­tee between Capt. Ellerby (Alec Bald­win) and Sgt. Dig­nam (Marky Mark Mark Wahlberg):



ELLERBY:
Go fuck yourself.

DIGNAM:
I’m tired from fuck­ing your wife.

ELLERBY:
How is your mother?

DIGNAM:
Good, she’s tired from fuck­ing my father.

Offi­cial movie site: thedeparted.warnerbros.com

Buy the DVD from Ama­zon and kick back a few pen­nies to The Dork Report.

Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead

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Before the Devil Knows You're Dead movie poster

 

Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead is a pow­er­ful, elec­tric return to form for the 83 year-old Sid­ney Lumet, direc­tor of such canon­i­cal clas­sics as 12 Angry Men, Ser­pico, Net­work, and, uh, The Wiz?

Kelly Masterson’s screen­play tells the high-tension tale of a pair of wholly doomed broth­ers as a non-linear nar­ra­tive from mul­ti­ple points of view. Each jump in time and p.o.v. is accom­pa­nied by a thrilling edit­ing tech­nique I haven’t seen any­where else but Den­nis Hopper’s Easy Rider: the cur­rent and sub­se­quent scene ric­o­chet back and forth in increas­ing speed until we’re hur­tled through time into another frag­ment of the narrative.

Ethan Hawke and Philip Seymour Hoffman in Before the Devil Knows You're DeadSid­ney Lumet’s mas­ter­class in block­ing, Fig. A

The movie is full of exam­ples of a fine direc­tor know­ing how to use the form to the story’s advan­tage. For one exam­ple of how the com­po­si­tion of a shot reflects the sub­text of the scene, note how that when­ever Andy (Philip Sey­mour Hoff­man) and Hank (Ethan Hawk) plot their scheme in the bar, Andy phys­i­cally looms over Hank and dom­i­nates the frame with his bulk.

Ethan Hawke, Albert Finney, and Marisa Tomei in Before the Devil Knows You're DeadStar­ring Ethan Hawke, Albert Finney, and Marisa Tomei’s boobs

The act­ing is great all around, includ­ing a dev­as­tat­ing turn from Albert Finney as a bit­terly dis­ap­pointed father, and Marisa Tomei as a woman who cast her lot with two of the worst prospects on the planet. And in case you think Hawke and Hoff­man are mis­cast as sib­lings, well… just watch.

Watch the trailer.

Buy the DVD from Ama­zon and kick back a few pen­nies to The Dork Report.

Sense and Sensibility (1995)

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Sense and Sensibility

 

In this Dork Reporter’s opin­ion, Ang Lee’s Sense and Sen­si­bil­ity is the best of breed of Jane Austen film adap­ta­tions. Please note, how­ever, there are two very good rea­sons to dis­credit my opin­ion on this subject:

I. Despite my Eng­lish major, I am ashamed to admit I have read only one Jane Austen novel: Emma. Yeah, I know, I’ve got to get work­ing on that.

II. Sense and Sen­si­bil­ity fea­tures two of this Dork Reporter’s all-time favorite movie crushes: Emma Thomp­son and Kate Winslet. Any film fea­tur­ing just one of these Eng­lish roses auto­mat­i­cally earns extra credit. Any film fea­tur­ing Emma and Kate, together, equals porn (espe­cially if they hop into bed together, as they do here… granted, as sis­ters keep­ing their toes warm, but still!). Any film fea­tur­ing Emma and Kate, plus a screen­play by Emma, equals orgasm.

Sense and SensibilityKate’s got a bee in her bonnet

A few extra notes:

  • Dork Report guest com­men­ta­tor (and first-class Austen afi­cionado) Snark­bait has coined the best phrase for this genre: “Regency Era froth”
  • Actor Greg Wise (John Willoughby) later became Mr. Emma Thomp­son, after Ken­neth Branaugh fool­ishly let her get away
  • Hugh Grant’s trade­mark stam­mer, per­sis­tent inter­est in the car­pet, and out-of-control hair are still charm­ing even in 18th Cen­tury sur­round­ings. But it is dif­fi­cult to sti­fle a snicker when the dev­il­ish Grant, as Edward Fer­rars, expresses an inter­est in join­ing the Church
  • I wish I had Alan Rickman’s (Col. Bran­don) vocal cords
  • Hey, look! It’s Tom Wilkin­son in a cameo as the soon-to-be-late Mr. Dash­wood! The Dork Report thinks Wilkin­son is one of the finest actors work­ing today
  • required view­ing: Emma Thompson’s 1996 Best Adapted Screen­play Oscar accep­tance speech (not on YouTube as of this writ­ing, but here is the text)

Sense and SensibilityIt ain’t easy being sensible

Buy the DVD from Ama­zon and kick back a few pen­nies to The Dork Report.

In the Valley of Elah

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In the Valley of Elah

 

In the Val­ley of Elah is a dark story about the psy­cho­log­i­cal dam­age of war, cer­tainly not a recipe for an enter­tain­ing night at the movies. This Dork Reporter will cop to find­ing it dif­fi­cult to work up the enthu­si­asm to see it, fear­ing the resul­tant depres­sion (despite my love and respect for cin­ema as an art form, and staunch sym­pa­thy for the anti-war move­ment, some­times a per­son just needs a lit­tle light enter­tain­ment). But writer/director Paul Hag­gis struc­tured the plot as a mur­der mys­tery, with a few pinches of wry humor, to craft an excel­lent film that is not pun­ish­ingly sad.

Hank Deer­field (Tommy Lee Jones) is a pious, patri­otic, and dis­ci­plined man. But he is also emo­tion­ally detached; he inves­ti­gates the mys­te­ri­ous death of his son as would an almost super­hu­man detec­tive. Draw­ing upon his skills as both a for­mer army sol­dier and police sergeant, he out­wits both the army’s own inves­ti­ga­tors and the res­i­dent local police smar­ty­pants Det. Emily Sanders (Char­l­ize Theron). Impres­sively for an old coot, he is even able to locate a back-alley cell phone phreaker, in an unfa­mil­iar town, using only a diner’s phone book. But the seem­ingly cold man does reveal his pain and weak­ness before the end, and even a hid­den unsa­vory side involv­ing racism.

In the Valley of Elah(Don’t Go Back To Sgt.) Rockville

The title derives from the Bib­li­cal para­ble of David and Goliath, a macho mano-a-manu beat­down that occurred dur­ing the bat­tle of the Israelites vs. the Pales­tini­ans. Aside from the obvi­ous par­al­lels to the locale and par­tic­i­pants of the ancient and never end­ing Mid­dle East con­flicts, the tale is also a metaphor for how Deer­field views man­hood and how he raised his son: to stand tall against any odds. But as Deer­field learns unpleas­ant truths about his son (drugs, tor­ture, pros­ti­tutes) and his coun­try (unjus­ti­fied war, insti­tu­tional cor­rup­tion), he must, late in life, come to reeval­u­ate his most core beliefs. So what makes this clearly lib­eral anti-war film spe­cial is its respect for exactly the type of per­son it might indict: the god-fearing patriot.

In the Valley of ElahWhitman’s Sam­pler, my favorite!

Finally, I’d like to high­light one excel­lent scene (in every way: writ­ing, act­ing, and direct­ing): as Deer­field phones his wife Joan (Susan Saran­don) to tell her their son is dead, the scene begins in the mid­dle, and in the end the cam­era pulls back to show Joan has torn apart the room. A lesser film would have shown the whole thing, for the sake of melodrama.

Offi­cial movie site: www.inthevalleyofelah.com

Buy the DVD from Ama­zon and kick back a few pen­nies to The Dork Report.

Se, jie (Lust, Caution)

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Lust Caution movie poster

 

As a pub­lic ser­vice, The Dork Report would like to issue a warn­ing to any­one that under the impres­sion that Se, jie (Lust, Cau­tion) is an NC-17 erotic thriller. Judg­ing from the mar­ket­ing cam­paign alone, one might under­stand­ably imag­ine that the lat­est film from the direc­tor of Sense & Sen­si­bil­ity and Eat Drink Man Woman would be a sexy drama suit­able for view­ing with a sig­nif­i­cant other, but be warned that most of it is quite far from tit­il­lat­ing. In fact, the first of three sex scenes can only be clas­si­fied as a rape (albeit one com­pli­cated by the char­ac­ters’ com­plex relationship).

Se, jie is set in 1942 Japanese-occupied Shang­hai, with flash­backs to the few years pre­ced­ing. A naïve but sin­cerely ded­i­cated bunch of Chi­nese stu­dent activists form a ter­ror­ist cell, with the aim to assas­si­nate col­lab­o­ra­tor Mr. Yee (Tony Leung). The­ater stu­dent Wong Chia Chi (Wei Tang) dis­cov­ers she is a nat­ural actress and gifted impro­viser, which unfor­tu­nately also makes her a superbly qual­i­fied as a under­cover spy.

Lust CautionA scene from what might be called Ang Lee’s “Deceive Rape Man Woman”

To fully inhabit her cover story as a mar­ried woman, she must first lose her vir­gin­ity. This hap­pens almost simul­ta­ne­ously with her cell los­ing their metaphor­i­cal vir­gin­ity as they mess­ily exe­cute their first right­eous assas­si­na­tion. As Paul New­man dis­cov­ers in Alfred Hitchcock’s Torn Cur­tain, mur­der is hard work, and takes time.

Se, jie was released in the same year as Paul Verhoeven’s Black Book and con­cerns many of the same themes: wartime occu­pa­tion, vio­lent resis­tance, and the use of sex as under­cover ingra­ti­a­tion. But while Ver­ho­even couldn’t resist front-loading his film with plenty of cheese­cake, Ang Lee and James Schamus take the high road and don’t pre­tend that the morally empty Mr. Yee isn’t vio­lently twisted, and that Wong Chia Chi doesn’t absolutely suf­fer for her cause.

Lust CautionThis blog is rated NC-17 for pub­lish­ing naughty film stills

Offi­cial movie site: www.filminfocus.com/lustcaution

Buy any of these fine prod­ucts from Ama­zon and kick back a few pen­nies to The Dork Report:

 

Things We Lost in the Fire

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Things We Lost in the Fire

 

Things We Lost in the Fire is a melo­drama mod­eled after 21 Grams in almost every way: the story of a nuclear fam­ily shat­tered by a ran­dom death, told as a non­lin­ear nar­ra­tive, with con­spic­u­ously arty cin­e­matog­ra­phy, and costar­ring Beni­cio Del Toro.

Even a single-sentence descrip­tion of the basic plot con­veys how over­wrought things get: Audrey (Halle Berry) impul­sively takes in her dead hus­band Brian’s (David Duchovny) heroin-addicted friend Jerry (Beni­cio Del Toro). Audrey’s moti­va­tions are semi-consciously self­ish; she per­haps thinks that she can retain some con­nec­tion with her dead hus­band by indef­i­nitely extend­ing his fruit­less effort to help his child­hood friend to kick his drug habit.

Things We Lost in the FireThis movie’s kind of a drag, don’t you think?

But unaware of the adage that one must beware what one asks for, she becomes resent­ful when her plan unex­pect­edly suc­ceeds. Jerry does in fact begin to kick drugs, a neigh­bor takes an implau­si­bly quick shine to him and offers him a job, he teaches one of her kids to swim (a task at which her hus­band had pre­vi­ously failed), and he responds to her flir­ta­tious advances.

Inex­plic­a­bly, the movie ends with the wrong Vel­vet Under­ground song; some­one chose “Sweet Jane” over “Heroin.” If the film­mak­ers thought it too obvi­ous, then how do you explain every­thing else in the movie?

Offi­cial movie site: www.thingswelostinthefire.com

Buy the DVD from Ama­zon and kick back a few pen­nies to The Dork Report.