Skyfall

Daniel Craig and Javier Bardem in Sam Mendes' 007 film, Skyfall

***1/2 out of ****

Skyfall is one of the best James Bond movies I’ve seen.

I’m a moderate Bond fan. I don’t think this franchise has much with which to become invested. It stars a very superficial hero who fans like because the vicarious experience of being Bond is hard to resist. Understanding him isn’t part of the experience. You don’t get to know him more than the suits he will wear, the cars he will drive, the gadgets he toys with, the women he will bed and the bad guys he will kill. James Bond is a cinematic tradition. No matter how much the world changes or how manhood and feminism are redefined, James Bond will return in some way or another, with modifications to fit him into the current state of the world.

The pleasure I get from a 007 flick, is simply out of watching essentially the same movie again and again which preserves characteristics of traditional flare, but with a new style every time. There can be a new way of shooting it, a new style of music, new materialistic goods, current fashions, state-of-the-art special effects and maybe a new actor in the lead.

Daniel Craig appears, for the third time, as Bond and he may be my favorite actor to play him… Yeah… Better than Connery. When I first saw him in the incredible franchise-reboot, Casino Royale, I was surprised how well he worked in the role. He has the reckless charm everyone has displayed as the famous character but more importantly his eyes make me think of someone who has a very dark side and a killer’s streak.

Craig worked with director Sam Mendes in the excellent 2002 film, Road to Perdition and reportedly influenced him in recent years to take on this project. Mendes may seem unlikely to some, since his most successful film to date is 1999’s Best Picture Winner, American Beauty, but as a fan of his, I can’t tell you how thrilled I was to read that he would be making a 007 movie. Upholding the tradition of classic spectacle-driven cinema comes to mind when I think of this franchise. Mendez has a consistent ability to utilize every traditional element in cinema that culminates in the magnificence of the medium.

The simplest of these elements, is an inspired cast. So many in-demand talents have come together for Skyfall. Aside from Craig as Bond and Judi Dench as M, we now have Ralph Fiennes as a British Intelligence Committee chairman, Ben Whishaw as the new Q, the beautiful Naomie Harris as an agent, Albert Finney as a man from Bond’s past, and Javier Bardem as this film’s funny and unsettling villain. We also get a relative newcomer, which is preferable for a Bond love interest, with the gorgeous French actress Bérénice Marlohe.

A bolder element to Mendes’ work is cinematography, and for the third time, he works with director of photography, Roger Deakins, who has possibly shot the most beautiful looking Bond movie ever. This is the first in the series to be shot without film. As much as I am an advocate for the preservation celluloid cinematography, this movie is a fantastic example of how far digital cinematography has come in terms of looking warm and organic. The shots are wonderfully composed, lit and timed. To explain one sequence of many, there is a scene set in a Shanghai high rise where Bond fights an assassin in the dark as the two are silhouetted by giant video display billboards, which reflect off the glass surrounding them. Gorgeous!

The final Mendes element is Thomas Newman who I believe to be one of the top ten best film composers living today. His score to Road to Perdition is maybe his very best if not his work for Frank Darabont’s Stephen King prison films The Shawshank Redemption and The Green Mile. Newman is Hollywood music royalty and lives up to the family reputation. All his pieces in this ranging from action to romance are in keeping with the Bond tradition.

The theme song by Adele in collaboration with producer Paul Epworth (he also worked with Florence and the Machine to give you an idea of how it sounds) is like a new and very improved Diamonds are Forever and plays to yet another eye-candy filled credit sequence.

Then there’s the action, which is beautifully executed and a mighty apology for the scattered, shaky, Bourne-wannabe coverage and editing of the disappointing Quantum of Solace. Skyfall has an opening chase scene with the kind of fluidity and wide shots that makes an action scene work.

Contrary to my take on this series, this one breaks the conventional approach to the character by making him deeper as well as giving his relationship with M greater meaning. Fans may be put off by this. Me? I liked it. Though I think the information void it’s filling regarding the character is more imaginable than dramatic. The result is making this particular outing feel like more than a Bond movie... it's a real good movie.

Flight

Denzel Washington and Kelly Reilly in Robert Zemekis' Flight

**** out of ****

When I look at the climate of mainstream cinema today, I consider a serious movie from Robert Zemekis to be a breath of fresh air. This is because I don’t think a lot of today’s directors are very good at establishing a tone that can engage an audience emotionally.

Check out AV Club's review.

In the new film Flight, Zemekis returns to directing live-action cinema for the first time in over a decade. It is an incredibly strong and heavy movie about an alcoholic drug-using airline pilot played by Denzel Washington whose character is put to question after a plane crash (The most intense plane crash I’ve ever seen in a movie). The story is thought provoking because the crash is not his fault. It was a technical malfunction and his expert piloting saved lives. Regardless, it wasn’t right for him to put lives at stake on a daily basis with a problem he refused to deal with.

The film is a challenging character-piece that features a broken man on a downward spiral as well as a misery-loves-company relationship with a recovering heroin addict played by Kelly Reilly. Don Cheadle plays the airline’s lawyer, who with Bruce Greenwood, as a higher-up in the company, are doing everything possible to cover up the protagonist’s mistakes. John Goodman is a scene-stealer as Denzel’s sleazy friend who can hook him up with any vice he needs.

The materiel here, by screenwriter John Gatins (Coach Carter) could easily be turned into cheap addiction-themed fodder but it is handled with careful meditative care by Zemekis and the excellent cast who make every scene in the movie take its time without cutting any character short of their humanity.

Zemekis started-off in comedy and found huge success with films that showcased groundbreaking special effects. With Flight, he continues with that ability, but unlike so many technically gifted directors who produce such sights, these tricks have become second hand, as he is just as good -if not better, when dealing with actors, to create real complex characters with a meaningful story to tell. 

Like Spielberg with Lincoln, it is so rewarding to see a director who made my favorite childhood films, make movies that satisfy me as an adult.

Lincoln

Daniel Day-Lewis is Abraham Lincoln

**** out of ****

Steven Spielberg was a cinematic hero in my earliest years as a movie geek. As I got older, I began hear and read opinions from a possibly more sophisticated audience who dismissed his work as sheer spectacle. Even when he moved away from fantasy adventure films and into more dramatic materiel, there was still an element of criticism that he was a manipulative director who had the audacity to tell the audience how to feel. To that, I say that art is manipulation.

In Lincoln, Spielberg has wisely made a film that intimately follows the famous president during the last few months of his life. What could have been a convoluted birth-to-death biopic is instead a story set over a small passage of time that provides a movie’s worth of materiel and an excellent character study.

It is partly based on a book by Doris Kearns Goodwin called Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln and written for the screen by Tony Kushner. Kushner worked with Spielberg before on the excellent 2005 film Munich and won the Pulitzer Prize for his play, Angels in America.


Here is an interview with him on Fresh Air. 

It revolves around Abraham Lincoln trying to end the Civil War and his battle to pass the Thirteenth Amendment to abolish slavery, while trying to maintain a family life at the same time. Daniel Day-Lewis provides an unconventional performance as the sixteenth president with a soft-spoken delivery and not the deep vocal projection we expect from actors playing great men. I don’t need to tell you how good he is in this role.

Here's an interview with Daniel Day-Lewis.

The cast of characters is gigantic. I am curious how history buffs will take to this film because it is tailored for them. Me? I was trying really hard to keep up with everyone (I’m definitely seeing this movie again). I don’t have room to list the great actors -and the characters they play, but I will stop to talk about a highlight performance by Tommy Lee Jones as Congressman Thaddeus Stevens whose radical support of abolition and equal rights is compromised in order to give the proposed amendment leverage.

I have too many congratulations to give this very rich film. Above all, Spielberg has continued his legacy as one of our greatest living directors who can bare the responsibility of such an important subject: A president working with a divided nation –which feels very relevant today.

The Man with the Iron Fists

RZA in The Man with the Iron Fists

** out of ****

The Man with the Iron Fists is the debut film by Wu-Tang Clan’s The RZA. His long-time obsession with Kung-Fu movies has led him to making his own exploitation-style movie. As a director, his inspiration comes across well enough, but he doesn’t manage to avoid a lot of the pitfalls that come with directing for the first time.

Quentin Tarantino (this film’s producer) made his Kill Bill movies with a very similar purpose in mind but he knows how to borrow from low-brow cinema and augment the more valuable aspects in the artistic act of an homage. The RZA (who scored the first Kill Bill) doesn’t seem to be particularly selective and makes a movie that’s just as good -and bad as what he’s paying tribute too. I don’t sense a unique voice from him as a cinematic artist.

The story developed by RZA and Eli Roth is too crammed with conflicting characters to begin to explain it (The first cut of the film was four-hours and was then reduced to ninety minutes). Lets just say that the movie is set in nineteenth-century China. Starring RZA as a blacksmith, Rick Yune as a warrior, Lucy Liu as a whorehouse proprietor with tricks up her sleeve, and Russell Crowe as a lustful traveling Englishman who is not to be tested.

 

The movie has its moments but it doesn’t help at all that it is plagued with a lot of the standard problems that annoy me in modern action films. Fight scenes are filled with Michael Bay methods: Tight shots and quick editing that make it hard to get a sense of the space around the characters and who’s doing what. To make matters worse this movie has very obvious digital blood effects.

The Man with the Iron Fists has its share of deliberate corniness, wire tricks, cool stunts, and is acceptably set to modern rap music at times. The end result is still a B-movie, and maybe that’s all The RZA and co-writer Eli Roth wanted out of it, but it’s not a very gratifying one. 

Wreck-It Ralph

 **1/2 out of ****

Wreck-It Ralph is videogame nostalgia blended with candy obsession. With it’s bright colors and the occasional annoying pop-song, it’s a sugar rush to the senses and kids will dig it. Adults may overdose.

The movie begins with the Wreck-It Ralph game being played and the 8-bit rendering is down to the last detail, everything you could expect from an early eighties arcade game. Then the arcade reaches its closing time and all the characters come to life as we the audience, are transported inside their world where everything is three-dimensional but some of the jerky animation is still preserved.

As a kid, I found the videogames I played to be kind of magical and inspiring but the concept of them coming to life or having an internal real world never occurred to me while toys coming to life did, like in Toy Story. When I saw cartoons as living beings working the movie business in Who Framed Roger Rabbit, that seemed kind of natural too. However, I think the concept of video game characters coming to life in the arcade after closing time isn't a fantasy I can relate to. Whatever, I’ll go with it.

The characters socialize by traveling through the arcade’s circuitry but when they venture outside their game they run the risk of dying without an extra life to help them. They also have the top priority of fulfilling their roles to keep the game working correctly during operating hours. Getting unplugged by the arcade owner is the worst fate. Cute. That’s what this movie is. Just imagine Shrek meets Tron and you’ve got it. That’s not the best news for animation enthusiasts. It depends on what you value in movies like this. Personally I’m annoyed by animated movies that try to thrive solely on their cuteness. I love Ratatouille and I hate Madagascar. Wreck-It Ralph is somewhere in the middle.

Like Donkey Kong, Ralph is the bad-guy of his thirty-year-old videogame and is having a midlife crisis (I wonder how bad videogame characters get when they turn forty). He chooses to jump into other videogames to see if he can find his place as a good guy instead. Ralph is perfectly voiced by John C. Reilly. Along the way he ends up in a candy-themed race-car game ruled over by King Candy voiced by Alan Tudyk channeling Ed Wynn’s Mad Hatter. There he meets a reject named Vanellope, voiced with gleeful obnoxiousness by Sarah Silverman, who wants to race but can’t because her character has a programing glitch. Ralph befriends her and learns the value of being a real good-guy while he helps someone no one else wants to. 

It's a generally fun movie but it was all I expected it to be and nothing more.

Jiro Dreams of Sushi

 **** out of ****

Jiro makes me hungry.

Cloud Atlas

Halle Berry and Jim Broadbent in Cloud Atlas

**1/2 out of **** 
 
Here it is: An ambivalent review.

Cloud Atlas is a gigantic film that must have been a massive undertaking and seems to exist in a valley between the mountains of astonishment and the cliffs of the ridiculous. You are essentially watching six –yes, six movies at the same time! They are all different genres telling stories of human oppression ranging between dystopian science fiction and modern dark comedy. They also span across time from the mid-nineteenth century to an unknown post-apocalyptic time. The stories are edited with intercutting constantly interrupting one another.

So what’s it like watching it? Imagine taking Waterworld, The Talented Mr. Ripley, Logan’s Run, Billy Budd, The China Syndrome and One Flew Over the Cookoo’s Nest, then abridging each one and splicing them all together giving the audience five minutes of each film at a time. I found this to be disorienting but I think I started to get used to it at the two-hour mark. Oh yeah… This movie is three hours. Not that there’s anything wrong with that. I just need to let you know what you’re up against.

Ebert loved it. Here he talks about our comprehension of movies.

An interesting thing the film does to connect the stories, is the use of the same cast throughout. This gives us a showcase of the range our given players possess and the work of very busy makeup artists.

Tom Hanks, Jim Sturgess, Halle Berry, Jim Broadbent, Doona Bae, Keith David, James D’Arcy, Hugh Grant, Hugo Weaving, Ben Whishaw, and Susan Sarandon are all challenged with playing a range of characters varying in race, sex, good, and evil. The results range between convincing and not so convincing. Sometimes, it’s like watching a high caliber cast do experimental theater. Then again, you may feel like you’re watching an Austin Powers movie, feeling all too aware of the multiple performance gimmick.

Tom Hanks and Halle Berry seem to be getting top billing in the domestic marketing campaign for this film. Despite their good work in the film, they seem like bait for the wrong audience. If you hated Magnolia, Babel, Short Cuts, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, and The Tree of Life, then Cloud Atlas doesn’t stand a chance with you. Personally, I can say that most of those movies I felt unsure of on my first viewing but eventually grew to love them.

The content and form of this movie is quite like Darren Aronofsky's The Fountain. Around the middle, I was finding it as difficult to enjoy as Charlie Kaufman's very challenging Synechdoche, New York. If I were to compare this movie to something much closer, it would be Todd Haynes' Bob Dylan-themed, I'm Not There. which left me with a very similar feeling to this movie.

I was never bored when watching this film, no matter how strange it felt. The truth is, I felt frustrated getting yanked out of a story when it started to get interesting and thrown into another one for which I didn’t care as much. I was on the edge of my seat in awe during the futuristic Orwellian nightmare story, felt the pain of the melancholy drama surrounding the young composer in nineteen-thirty-one Belgium, and laughed out loud several times during the modern comedy about the elderly publisher tricked into incarceration at a rest home.

The most challenging part for me was the post-apocalyptic tribe speaking in a futuristic form of English for which I had trouble adapting. That story took the longest time for me to care about. I eventually did but it felt like the most awkward of all the film’s interruptions. 

This movie's form is working with the assumption that the central theme, being the struggle for freedom, can connect these stories in a philosophical and emotional sense. Seeing this movie once wasn’t enough for me to be sure if it really succeeds at that. All I know is that I saw something very strong.

David Edelstein has a review of disappointment.

There are also more literal connections between characters. For example: A character from one story may be reading the preserved diary of a character from another. The movie keeps making the statement, often literally through dialogue, that we are all connected. Sure, it’s pretentious. Then again, many great movies are. The novel by David Mitchell, on which the film is based, is said to work in a similar way but organized differently. I am easily curious if this works better on paper.

The stories are split up among the film’s three directors you have Andy and Lana Wachowski who were both responsible for The Matrix Trilogy as well as an awesome little thriller called Bound. Then there is Tom Tykwer, who is famous for the German movie, Run Lola Run but made two very underrated films, The Princess and the Warrior and Perfume. A marathon of their films would easily be labeled, "A Celebration of the Subversive.” They love clever outlaws and anyone struggling against the intimidation of power. A collaboration between the Wachowsis and Tykwer sounded very promising and had me very exited to see this ambitious endeavor.

Christy Lemire thinks the movie is unintentionally "laughable".

Now that I have seen it, my brain won’t rest. Is it great? Is it horrible? Does it need an alternate cut? Does it need to be seen multiple times in order be appreciated? Maybe someone will see it once and instantly fall in love. Maybe they will walk out of the theater as I saw several people do during my viewing. What is certain is that this is no mainstream mindless escape. This is a film with a vision and is nothing to forget about. 

Here's the Wachowskis and Tykwer discussing their work experience.