In Contention

Author: Kristopher Tapley

  • REVIEW: “The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe” (***1/2)

    The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the WardrobeJeff Wells is half right when he says “There’s a new Best Supporting Actress contender in town…10 year-old Georgie Henley, the soul and natural light-beam of ‘The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe’…came out of nowhere…but she’s Drew Barrymore in “E.T.” without the cloying I-know-I’m-cute-and-you’re-going- to-adore-me attitude.

    “Henley’s serene little-girl aura…her beauty, obvious intelligence, cultured British accent, etc…plus the generosity of feeling from within make for a potent combination.”

    Henley is nowhere near a Best Supporting Actress nomination (especially with co-star Tilda Swinton chewing the scenery), but she is one of the cutest and most talented youthful actor discoveries in a long time.

    “The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe” is inevitably going to find itself compared to Peter Jackson’s “The Lord of the Rings” franchise. And in the wake of those films, it will likely come off as old news to an Academy so desperately out of touch with depth of cinema over external labeling.

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  • SHORT TAKE: “The Producers” (***)

    The ProducersI never saw the stage production of Mel Brooks’s “The Producers.” It was the certifiable “it” item of the 2001 Tony Awards (taking in a record-breaking 12 wins).

    Now I’m fairly sure the film production is the stage musical on celluloid, with the typical additives that enhance the overall world that inhabits the story. If so, I really wish I had been able to make it out to a theater four years ago to give this thing a look.

    So, that said, if this brief reaction to the film comes off as a rave of the musical production many of you have already seen, forgive me – but this was a fun time at the movies.

    Mel Brooks has established a long lineage of toilet humor as his career has progressed. His stories have gone from Oscar-caliber (Best Original Screenplay winner “The Producers” in 1968 – on which his musical production was based) to irreverent and fun schlock (“Spaceballs,” “Robin Hood: Men in Tights”). But “The Producers,” even from that seed planted so long ago, is about something much, much more. It is a nod to, and a slap in the face of the business of show.

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  • REVIEW: “Match Point” (**1/2)

    Match PointThe problem with Woody Allen’s most recent effort, the multi-lauded Cannes favorite “Match Point” is that we’ve seen it all before. The writer/director has approached the exact same territory before albeit on this side of the pond.

    But deeper than that, it seems the extremely positive critical reception has more to do with a longing for the “return to form” we’ve come to expect – or should I say pine for – with each and every new endeavor from the conceiver of such creative works of genius as “Annie Hall” and “The Purple Rose of Cairo.”

    What “Match Point” lacks inherently, however, is just that – creativity.

    One comes to appreciate the cutely conceived, tight little package of a story (fit with hooks and paradigms the level of Syd Field), but what the master filmmakers do in instances such as these is elevate the material that extra inch with a depth of character, a richness of interaction. Who better to offer such aspects than Woody Allen?

    Instead, however, while the audience is set off on the interesting ride that unfolds beat after beat, a disinterest in the people actually living the events in the story keeps one at an uncomfortable observer’s distance.

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  • REVIEW: “Brokeback Mountain” (***1/2)

    Focus Features' Brokeback MountainIt is the true mark of artistry that guides a hand away from the simplistic and into the complex.

    “Brokeback Mountain” is and has been poised to merely be considered “the gay cowboy movie,” a label I’ve defended it against ever since I first read E. Annie Proulx’s short story (which originally appeared in The New Yorker).

    In the final analysis, however, director Ang Lee strikes so many right chords in the film, which took eight years to find its way to the screen, that one comes to forgive moments of melodrama that creep into an otherwise emotionally raw narrative.

    The story revolves around two ranch hands, Ennis Del Mar (Heath Ledger) and Jack Twist (Jake Gyllenhaal), who come to form a close bond while sheepherding for extra income over the summer of 1963.

    A chance moment of absolute comfort overtakes the two men one night, and that bond becomes a sexual one, but more appropriately, a sensual one. Their lives soon part ways, and years go by before they reunite for the first of a number of getaways to the mountains of Wyoming, both with wife and child at their respective homesteads.

    The story would be a tightrope walk for any seasoned filmmaker. Indeed, as Del Mar notes of the forbidden passion he and Twist share, “there ain’t no reins on this one.” It is an applicable statement to the tale itself, and like Twist’s rodeo cowboy, Lee takes the thunderous implications and bucking ferocity of the story in stride, riding the beast the full eight seconds. In so doing he elevates the chronicle above the physicality which can unfairly precede it.

    What struck this viewer most is that Lee reveals the thin line between love and hate with absolute expertise. Pain is a natural byproduct of intense passion. When Ennis punches the wooden walls of a façade –- after what he presumes to be the last time he’ll ever see Jack –- the reaction is both to the pain of loss and the anger he feels toward something clutching his heart so authoritatively. Let alone any thoughts that he may feel disgust for the act he has committed, surely the last thing he’d expect to have happened. This is quite apparently the first time Ennis Del Mar has ever fallen in love.

    (from left) Jake Gyllenhaal and Heath Ledger in Brokeback MountainThe performances largely represent the correct emotional cachet across the board.  Ledger’s seedy, love-struck cowboy is the standout. He lurks between his own surface, a character inside an entirely different persona. At once guarded and intense, this has to be seen as the actor’s finest work to date.

    The moment he claims “I’m nothing, I’m nowhere,” it becomes one of the truest depictions of the trappings of desire and ardency we’ve seen on screen.

    Much credit is due to a well-assembled and emotionally investigated screenplay from Diana Ossana and Larry McMurtry, but Ledger’s task was a challenging one regardless of the words provided.

    Suitably boring is Ennis’ wife Alma, played rather succinctly by Ledger’s real-life sweetheart Michelle Williams. The performance gives us another level of understanding when Ennis flees away to the mountains with Jack, as his “real” life becomes a slow, uneventful process lacking any real passion or excitement. Alma’s distress and shock at the knowledge of her predicament plays well through pained eyes.  The difficulty, however, lies on the other side of things.

    Jake Gyllenhaal slips over the top a bit too often as Jack Twist, both in times of joviality and in times of sincerity. He really hits his stride, however, once the character begins to age over the course of the narrative’s 15 or 20 years, as we see the toll longing and idolatry have taken on him.

    Michelle Williams and Heath Ledger in Brokeback MountainIt has to at least be said that Gyllenhaal has come into his own this year, both through this performance as well as through his controlled portrayal of an equally emotionally secluded young man in the underwhelming “Jarhead.”

    Anne Hathaway has a presence as Twist’s wife, Lureen, which overrides the function of the character. Her face is so bold and her performance so over-baked that it really clashes with the intent of the role.

    The relationship between Jack and Lureen just isn’t as thematically potent as the relationship between Ennis and Alma, due largely to this, and if there is a weak link in the case, I’d consider Hathaway as such.

    Regardless of imperfection, what we have in Brokeback Mountain is a brutal account of tragic love. It’s one of the oldest stories in the book, but Lee’s conviction and dedication to the core of Proulx’s wonderful story, in every waking aspect of the film’s creation, is what assists it in vaulting quite capably beyond simple-minded nonsense.

    Such a perception could easily have been detrimental to understanding the affecting symphony being composed here.

  • In it together

    Today is my birthday. I’m 24 years old.

    I’ve been following the Oscar race with some notable level of attention for 8 years. It is by no means a lengthy tenure, as there are others in the game who have been observing this outlandish span of time much longer than that. Even still, in these recent years – the height of the race’s popularity amongst the film-going community – I’ve noticed a number of intriguing things as a witness to its modern evolution.

    My first season was the 1997 season. The big films in play were James Cameron’s Titanic, Curtis Hanson’s L.A. Confidential and Gus Van Sant’s Good Will Hunting. It would be a rather poignant introductory year into the process for me.

    I knew my favorite films of the year were As Good As It Gets (from director James L. Brooks) and L.A. Confidential. The former struck the right chord at a time in my life where I was truly head-over-hills in love, while the latter was part of a brief progression of cinema – along with Michael Mann’s Heat and Bryan Singer’s The Usual Suspects – that was greatly sparking my interest and leaning me toward a profession chosen in the filmmaking arena.

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  • SHORT TAKE: “Transamerica” (*)

    TransamericaIt’s a very rare occasion that I walk out on a film. I tend to give everything a chance, and, especially in my life as a critical mind and writer, I feel I at least have the responsibility of seeing a thing from all sides.

    I did not walk out on “Transamerica,” but boy did I want to.

    Let us not bother with the mountain of issues the film either clobbers with a mallet or otherwise dodges completely.  Let’s leave alone it’s existence in a woefully surface-scratching state unworthy even of the label “sitcom-ish.”  And let’s also set aside the most dreadful character illustration we’ve seen in a film this year (misguided former hooker and wannabe junkie Toby Osbourne).

    Yes, let’s forget all of those elements for a moment and simply ponder what the heck this film is trying to say.

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  • SHORT TAKE: “Chicken Little” (***)

    Walt Disney Pictures' Chicken LittleDisney’s first fully computer generated in-house animated feature opens next Friday, and in a Fall season that seemingly brings with it a new disappointment each and every week, I have to consider this little gem a breath of fresh air.

    I won’t dip into hyperbole here. “Chicken Little” is what it is: a swift animated venture aimed at kids with brief attention spans, fit with enough mature giggles thrown into the mix to keep the parents engaged. Though at its heart the film is quite “grown up,” dealing with parental issues of believing in one’s child that make it more pertinent for a family movie-going experience than most animated features.  The film is still a frothy delight that at the very least reaches the bar for which it aims. That’s saying a lot this year.

    Taking the well-known fable of “Chicken Little” and her claims that “the sky was falling” after being conked on the head by an acorn, the screenplay –- from writers Steve Bencich, Ron Friedman and Ron Anderson –- expands on the myth.  It weaves a rather comprehensive moral into the mix that goes far beyond the mere warning against exaggeration and ill-informed conclusions the 300-year-old tale proposes.

    This was an enjoyable experience on many levels –- even in a crowded Westwood theater surrounded by talkative and fidgety youngsters. The voice talent is of considerably high quality, most especially Zach Braff, who pumps a lot of emotion into the title role (the gender of the character was changed to male early in the process), and Gary Marshall as Buck Cluck, Chicken Little’s struggling father who wishes he had the answers his dearly departed wife had in the realm of guidance.

    That’s right, the film even deals with single parenting -– right under your nose.

    I’d prefer not to write too much because analysis of something like this isn’t valuable. You’ll take from it what you will and the themes are easy enough to pick up on without a critic or columnist hammering them home for you. But while it may not be as inspired or as inventive as “Tim Burton’s Corpse Bride,” “Chicken Little” is a very charming addition to the pantheon of 2005 animated film product.

    (I should add that I was not, nor was the crowd, able to experience the “digital 3-D” technology utilized by the film at this screening, but I’m intrigued nonetheless and may just have to give it a shot once the film opens.)

  • REVIEW: “Jarhead” (**1/2)

    JarheadSam Mendes’s “Jarhead” makes no immediate attempt to connect you to its central character. It makes no attempt to pump emotion and empathy into the veins of the audience. It falls in line with Mendes’ penchant for colder, more removed depictions, and it’s potentially the material that most suits this penchant that the director has come across to date.

    I don’t blame the film for any of this. In fact, I rather champion it for it. The thematics come across, even if Mendes doesn’t follow through when he could have REALLY hit it out of the park, but the overall sense one gets from the film is a mish-mash of the offerings we’ve seen from other war film directors.

    Following a protagonist reminiscent of Albert Camus’ central focus in “The Stranger,” Bill Broyles’s screenplay (based on the novel by Anthony Swofford) gets to the point abruptly and hammers it home for the remainder.

    In the eyes of a “jarhead,” as envisioned by Swofford, life is a meaningless existence.  The journey of a soldier is less about defending a nation than it is about defining himself (or herself). In the middle of the desert, miles away from anything that matters in their world, no matter what they’re told by those in positions of power, the lives of freedom fighters are worthless in the eyes of those who live them.

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  • SHORT TAKE: “Hustle & Flow” (***1/2)

    Hustle & FlowI was finally able to catch Craig Brewer’s acclaimed “Hustle & Flow” last night at the Pacific Design Center in West Hollywood. The film was the opening installment of this year’s Movie City News Screening Series.

    Much hullabaloo has been made this year of Terrence Howard’s breakout work in both this and Paul Haggis’s “Crash,” and let me just say, in “Hustle & Flow” he puts forth the single greatest performance I’ve witnessed in a number of years. His depiction of DJay, a Memphis pimp with “head in the clouds” dreams of becoming a successful hip-hop artist, boasts an embarrassment of layers that makes one wonder, “Why hasn’t anyone tapped into this guy’s star potential before?”

    His turn in “Crash” was well-developed and largely faithful to the visions of Paul Haggis and Bobby Moresco, but his work in Brewer’s film elevates what could have been a flat, uneven character – one that may have seemed overbearing in an insistence on killing stereotypes – to a whole other, transcendent level.

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  • SHORT TAKE: “Kiss Kiss Bang Bang” (***1/2)

    Kiss Kiss Bang BangShane Black’s “Kiss Kiss Bang Bang” is surprisingly fun, excitingly catty and ultimately one of the greatest guilty pleasure film experiences of the year.

    Based in part on Brett Halliday’s novel “Dead Bodies Are Where You Find Them” – about which I must confess I am entirely ignorant and therefore have no basis for commentary – Black’s film serves as a worthy addition to the canon of the American buddy/cop film genre he helped to create with 1987’s “Lethal Weapon.”

    The conglomerate of Walter Hill, Roger Spottiswoode, Larry Gross and the ever genre-immersed Steven E. de Souza really initiated the concept with 1982’s “48 Hours.” Following suit, the trend continued through to the John McTiernans and the Jan De Bonts of the world toward fully crafting the modern American cop actioner. Of course, films like this can find roots in, say, William Friedkin’s “The French Connection” on some level, but in as much as they exist almost as comedies first and foremost, Shane Black has certainly hand a major hand in paving the way, for better or worse.

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  • REVIEW: “Good Night, and Good Luck.” (***1/2)

    Good Night, and Good Luck.I see many films each year. I write about most of them. But rarely do I feel the need to rush home and pour my thoughts and perspective into a column immediately.

    Such was the case with “Good Night, and Good Luck.”

    The subject of Edward R. Murrow and his valiant stand against McCarthy Era politics is an obvious obsession for director George Clooney. Newsman father Nick Clooney brought the star up in a lefty household that held men like Murrow in the highest regard – men who invented journalism in its modern existence, found its pulse of potential and utilized its merits for a greater, noble good.

    When Murrow (portrayed to perfection by David Strathairn) is first revealed in the film, it is a backstage moment before giving what would be seen as an indicting speech in acceptance of commendation at a 1958 Radio and Television News Directors Association convention. He takes a few final puffs from his signature cigarette. A plume of smoke steadily escapes his nostrils. The image recalls a dragon blowing smoke before breathing furious fire.

    That’s precisely what Murrow was about to do.

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  • INTERVIEW: Gong Li

    Chinese actress Gong Li is poised to explode onto the landscape of the American movie scene.

    An international star and a staple of contemporary Asian cinema for nearly twenty years, Gong has offered awards-caliber work with performances in Kaige Chen’s Farewell My Concubine and former beau Zhang Yimou’s Raise the Red Lantern and Shanghai Triad, as well as this year’s 2046 from revered auteur Wong Kar-Wai. Her second English language endeavor comes this December in the form of Columbia’s Memoirs of a Geisha from director Rob Marshall.

    One of the last big secrets of the season is just how well this film, from the Academy Award-nominated Chicago helmer, may or may not have turned out. Marshall initiated much hullabaloo last year in the form of his perceived controversial casting decisions, and that fallout has continued through to the film’s upcoming release.

    For the lead role of Nitta Sayuri, a Japanese geisha circa 1929, the director thumbed Bejing-born wunderkind Ziyi Zhang. This triggered a swell of resentment from many in the international film-going community, shocked at the notion of casting a Chinese woman in the position of a Japanese character, let alone a character so historically resonant where the country’s heritage is concerned. But then Marhsall also sought out Malaysian native Michelle Yeoh for the role of Mameha, Sayuri’s mentor, and, of course, China-bred Gong Li in the showy role of villainess Hatsumomo.

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  • INTERVIEW: Viggo Mortensen

    “I think Americans are good people, but I don’t think they’re better or worse than anybody else in the world. I am particularly proud of the fact that, in spite of the pathetic performance of our government in relation to what happened, how it could have been prepared for and reaction after the fact to the hurricane, and now there’s another one today, and tomorrow coming in hard – it didn’t matter what the government did or didn’t do or how they wanted to hide or make excuses. People took care of business, and continue to. I think people are essentially resilient and people surprise us – the good they can do, the compassion they can display. Humans are unique in that sense compared to other animals, just like in this story. They can reason and say ‘no, that’s not the right way. It may be difficult, but I want to struggle against being that way.’ They can also reach out to help people that they don’t even know for no particular reason other than it’s the right thing to do. And you can see that happening right now. That always give you hope for the future.”

    -Viggo Mortensen, Beverly Hills, Septmber 22, 2005

    Actor Viggo Mortensen has an eclectic sense of artistry.

    He is keen on storytelling, not only through his work as a thespian, but also through his efforts in literature and even photography. Maria Bello describes him as being a man whom you cannot separate from his art, and speaking directly with the actor, one detects an unabashed sense of cultural acuity – an attunement with the world of self-expression.

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  • Waxing politique

    Interviewing Viggo Mortensen last Thursday at the Four Seasons brought with it the inevitable political discussion, prompted by my referencing statements the actor had made calling for the impeachment of President Bush in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. The following is his political stance and word for word dissection of the administration. Though not pertaining to A History of Violence or film in the slightest, I feel it an important statement that deserves its own coverage. And I agree with every syllable:

    “What I don’t want is just for Bush to be impeached, because the last person I want in charge of the world is Cheney. He’s a total pirate. And this doesn’t have to do with left wing, right wing, it doesn’t have to do with democrat, republican, it’s about honesty. I know that politicians – that’s the way the business is, politics – most of them, at some point or another, act in a two-faced way, by necessity it seems, and that governments generally lie. But what Bush and his backers have done is so far beyond, in terms of lying consistently, over and over again. They’ve taken it to a whole other level, and at the risk of sounding crude, I guess I would ask you this. How can you justify having impeachment proceedings that are costly and extremely distracting to a president that is trying to run the country and deal with things like terrorism? How can you compare having impeachment proceedings against someone for lying about a private sexual encounter or encounters, with a guy who is taking the United States to hell in a hell basket? It’s just unbelievable.

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  • INTERVIEW: Maria Bello

    Actress Maria Bello tells it how it is.

    She seemingly refuses to censor herself, and in an interview setting she is perfectly comfortable allowing her thought process to be put on display. She’s headstrong, contemplative and overwhelmingly sensitive to the natural process of learning, be it through life, through career, through love or through family. She’s one of the few who seems to approach acting from within rather than from without, and as such, she was the perfect candidate for the demanding and crucial role of Edie Stall in David Cronenberg’s A History of Violence.

    An actress with roots in television, including a modest stint on NBC’s “ER”, Bello has made rather defining marks in her cinematic output thus far. She typically finds herself portraying ladies mesmerized by their leading men.

    In Permanent Midnight, she played the whimsical groupie (of sorts) to Ben Stiller’s former junkie screenwriter. In Auto Focus she found face-time opposite Greg Kinnear’s sex-addicted Bob Crane. In The Cooler she bounced off of the passive and reactive William H. Macy as a call girl searching for a pulse in lighted but lifeless Las Vegas. And this year, she offers her best work to date, opposite Viggo Mortensen, portraying equal parts of fear, loathing and intrigue as the wife of a man caught between a clouded past and a hopeful future.

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  • INTERVIEW: David Cronenberg

    Filmmaker David Cronenberg has made a career out of disturbing imagery. From James Woods shoving a videotape through his stomach in 1983’s Videodrome to James Spader getting off with a crippled Holly Hunter in 1996’s Crash; Jeff Goldblum spewing acid in 1986’s The Fly to the construction of a weapon made of human bones in eXistenZ, Cronenberg has found a knack for concocting horrifying cinematic incarnations.

    His latest film, A History of Violence, opened in limited release last weekend. The film is, by and large, his most subtle effort to date. By that same token, it is also the most disturbing work of his career.

    One would never expect such fantastic imaginings to come from the brain of this modest, quiet and unassuming individual. Mr. Cronenberg sits with Zen-like contentment when both surrounded by a roundtable of harping journalists, as well as in private, having just received news of a rave review from The New York Times. He is a man who seems very comfortable in his own skin, peering out at the world he envisions through piercing blue eyes, under furry mantle-like gray eyebrows. He seems quite capable of amusing himself through his work as an artist.

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  • SHORT TAKE: “Walk the Line” (***)

    Walk the LineYou’ll soon see Joaquin Phoenix tearing up the screen with a blistering performance in the story of a seminal rock star’s fascinating life in “Walk the Line” – but it ain’t Johnny Cash.

    The film works very well on its own terms, but I have to say – I just don’t like the terms. On performances, the singing in the film is unbelievably on point. Reese Witherspoon is fantastic and it’s perhaps her best work yet – a proud moment for the dearly departed Carter.

    And Phoenix is on fire, even if I felt like I was watching Joaquin Phoenix the whole time. You see, I never once felt like this was Johnny Cash – unlike Jamie Foxx in “Ray.”  And is it really wise to make your main character THIS loathsome for the entire film? Is it even that interesting to do so? Is it very respectful to hold Cash up as a junkie first and foremost? Talk about pillaging a legacy.

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  • SHORT TAKE: “In Her Shoes” (**1/2)

    In Her ShoesCurtis Hanson’s “In Her Shoes” is an exercise in sluggish pacing.  It has a lot to say to its target audience, but it ultimately feels as though the filmmaker behind the project isn’t capable of really sparking the conversation.

    Cameron Diaz struts about the screen desperately in need of a meal, but fulfilling the empty framework of her character well enough to believably convey a ditz, while Toni Collette capably provides us with yet another brilliant performance in a sub-par film.

    The real question mark for me becomes why anyone would have made a big deal of Shirley MacLaine’s lackluster performance of a flatly conceived character.

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