I just finished watching Ed Harris’ second feature, a western called Appaloosa. I never saw Pollock, but based on its reputation, I was expecting something different than what I got. Ed Harris is not a terribly engaging director. He has a good eye for composition, and a workmanlike mastery of how to move a camera through a scene (on the rare occasions when the camera moves); it’s just that he isn’t that great at pacing, or getting good performances out of so-so actors.
It’s not that the movie is bad; it’s all right, I’d say even pretty good. Harris’ pacing issues don’t leave the movie any more limpid than any other westerns of the last few years, and the deliberate pace sometimes plays into the wry humor that is its strongest suit. Harris’s extras and bit players come across horribly, with stilted, over-delivered lines, but, fortunately, the main roles in the film are anchored by strong actors–Viggo Mortensen, Jeremy Irons, Renee Zellweger, and Harris himself–who don’t need an actor’s director to turn in sterling performances.
Harris and Mortensen, in particular, create interesting, idiosyncratic, believable characters that keep you involved in the movie from beginning to end. Jeremy Irons spends the movie chewing scenery, and Renee Zellweger turns in a realistically false performance as my favorite of real-life characters, the honestly dishonest woman of easy virtue.
The movie really earns its two hours of my life, however, with wry, oddball comedy, snarky lines and situations that often leave you with the impression that you’re laughing at something that wasn’t supposed to be funny, or isn’t to the characters at least.
I recommend it.
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Vicky Christina Barcelona is a modest rennaissance for Woody Allen. Javier Bardem, who I’d only seen before as the sinister hitman in No Country for Old Men, turns in an utterly opposite, astounding performance as a suave Spanish painter and lover. Rebecca Hall, a British actress playing one of two American girls vacationing in Spain, is Allen’s alter ego: a quintessentially neurotic, implicitly Jewish woman whose words could only have sprung from Allen’s pen. Given their physical differences, it is remarkable to watch her spend the entire movie doing an entirely credible impression of Allen himself.
Scarlet Johansson, the other American girl, spends the movie playing the same sexy, louche, conflicted character she always seems to play. She does such a good job of it, and looks so good doing it, though, that it’s hard to find any fault with what she’s doing. Nobody blames Harrison Ford for playing Harrison Ford.
If there is one high point to the movie, it’s that you get to see Johnansson (briefly) make out with Penélope Cruz, here playing Bardem’s fiery, crazy ex-wife. Ape shit insane, and she makes you believe it, too.
If the performances are fantastic, the writing is, meh, pretty good. Dialogue is one of Allen’s strong points, but like Kevin Smith, he can overdo it from time to time, and his clever word play sometimes serves to obscure the triteness of the subject matter. At his best, it doesn’t even matter what he’s talking about (egg salad recipe, anyone?); at his worst, you don’t care what he’s talking about. Vicky Christina Barcelona falls somewhere in between. Its study of the many shades and shapes of romantic love, loyalty, and relationships is sometimes pretty ham-handed, and isn’t going to shed much useful light on the subject for anybody who’s been fucking their way across the last decade, but it stops well short of boring or embarrassing.
The movie is beautifully composed and shot, and the beauty of the Catalan city and countryside really adds that extra touch of aesthetic awesome.
I highly recommend it.
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Defiance is a Daniel Craig vehicle that tells the true story of the Bielski partisans, a group of Polish jews who hid in the forest and attacked German troops while supporting Russians during wold ward II. Shot, predictably, in shades of blue and gray, it gives Mr. Craig and Liev Schreiber a chance to grimace and practice their Jewish/Polish accents, provides them with occasional opportunities to shoot Germans, and parades us around the now familiar spectacles of the horrors of Nazi Germany (SEE the helpless civilians shot! HEAR the cries of the condemned in the ghettos!)
The movie would be better if the director, Ed Zwick (who also co-wrote the screen play), was not so ham-handed, hammering every thematic and moral point home with a five-pound sledge. As it is, the movie is a slick, craftsmanlike entertainment, and I recommend putting it on your Netflix list.
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Zack and Miri Make a Porno is one of the most hilarious goddamned movies I’ve seen in years. Seth Rogan and Elizabeth banks give predictable and predictably hilarious performances as two life-long friends who decide to make a porno to get some quick cash, after their electricity gets turned off and they’re reduced to burning bills in a barrel in their living room for warmth. Kevin Smith is not the kind of director who surprises so much with a crazy, unexpected plot structure. His movies are comedies, and you know how they’re going to end. You know more or less what kind of things are going to happen along the way.
Where Smith really shines is with his characters, small plot twists, and, of course, his dialogue. Here, it all wins. MEGA WINS. I only wish I’d turned it off ten minutes before the end, when it goes all Jersey Girl for no good reason. Still, I very much recommend. Justin Long has the funniest gay-guy small parts since Russell Sams played Dick in Rules of Attraction.
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Igor sucks ass. Lame jokes, stupid story, dumb themes, crappy voice acting. It might make you giggle once every half hour or so, but at what cost?
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RockNRolla is a good movie; given that it’s a spiritual sequel to two great movies, Lock, Stock, and Two Smoking Barrels and Snatch, that’s not high praise. There’s nothing actually wrong with it, per se. It’s the same kind of wacky east London ensemble crime caper as the previous movies; the mostly unknown actors put in solid performances, and it’s got the same gritty visual feel.
There is one chase scene that rises to the level of madcap awesome the previous movies spent their entire time at, but, by and large, RockNRolla falls short. The characters aren’t as memorable, the story isn’t as memorable, and the camera tricks that seemed so integral to the previous flicks seem a little belabored and gratuitous.
If you haven’t seen the other movies, watch them instead. If you have seen the previous movies, see it based on whether you liked them.
