In Contention

Tag: Appaloosa

  • REVIEW: “Appaloosa” (**1/2)

    New Line Cinema\'s AppaloosaI don’t think it’s much of a secret around these parts that I really wanted to be on board for “Appaloosa.” I’m in love with the new resurgence of the western genre, even if I get irritated when people refer to “No Country for Old Men” and “There Will Be Blood” as evidence of it.

    This, of course, redirects credit due to a modern lineage that began with Kevin Costner’s back-to-basics “Open Range,” exploded with creativity with David Milch’s “Deadwood” and settled into a hell of a groove last year with James Mangold’s “3:10 to Yuma” and Andrew Dominik’s “The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert ford.”

    But lulls and misfires are to be expected of a genre finding its footing in a brave new Hollywood seemingly willing to finance such efforts, and it pains me to say “Appaloosa” is an example.

    Lifted from the pages of a Robert Parker novel painstakingly simple in its narrative approach, Ed Harris’s adaptation suffers in its admittedly commendable insistence to be faithful to the source. The result is a stilted narrative with vague characterizations and otherwise awkward interaction.

    Ed Harris and Viggo Mortensen star as Virgil Cole and Everett Hitch respectively, gun-hands that move from town to town restoring order for a fee, establishing the law and governance of the country’s last frontier. Fifteen years together can breed a relationship of intuition. Virgil and Everett sense each other’s disposition, depend on each other like extensions of themselves. The interplay was fascinating in novel form and is almost there on the screen.

    When the duo arrive in Appaloosa, the city has been forced to its knees by a quick-draw rancher, Randall Bragg (Jeremy Irons) and his band of misfits. By-laws are posted, Cole is given command of the town’s law and order and the wheels are set in motion for plenty of steely-eyed encounters and enough shoot-outs (and near shoot-outs) to satisfy the appetite.

    (more…)

  • ‘Appaloosa’ art work continues to impress

    I really dug the one-sheet for Ed Harris’s “Appaloosa” that debuted a few weeks ago. There’s something about the monochrome grit of it all. And now it seems that New Line has released some banner art work for each of the four principle characters in the film. I stumbled onto them at Awards Daily (and cropped the set into the badass character quartet below).

    I’ll be reviewing “Appaloosa,” which I saw last week, in a few days once Toronto kicks into high gear. Feast your eyes for the time being:

    New Line Cinema\'s Appaloosa

  • ‘Che’ = ‘Havana’s Gate’

    Ouch:

    Call it Havana’s Gate. Steven Soderbergh’s elephantine account of the rise and deification of revolutionary icon Ernesto (Che) Guevara could prove as deadly to the director’s career as Heaven’s Gate was to Michael Cimino’s. Running a bladder-bursting 4 hours and 22 minutes (split over two parts), it reeks of authenticity but also self-indulgence. A potentially great performance by Benicio Del Toro in the title role is buried beneath Soderbergh’s stylistic tics and an almost complete lack of dramatic tension. It feels like every plodding jungle bootstep of Che and his band of rebels is shown, first in Cuba and later in Bolivia, but we never really get to know the man whose face launched a million T-shirts.

    Pete Howell has also given high marks to Ed Harris’s “Appaloosa” and Jonathan Demme’s “Rachel Getting Married.” Neither was my cup of tea, and the former was an outright disappointment of potential, but I expect there to be plenty of fans to go around for each.  Especially “Rachel,” with a delicious duo on screen in the form of Anne Hathaway and Rosemarie Dewitt. Nicole Kidman and Jennifer Jason Leigh, eat your hearts out.

  • Robert Parker’s ‘Appaloosa’

    Appaloosa by Robert ParkerBefore I head out today on a whirlwind of pre-Toronto screenings that will take me away from the work at hand, I wanted to follow up last week’s brief comments on Robert Parker’s novel “Appaloosa,” which is being adapted for the screen by director Ed Harris this year (and will play at the festival next week).

    I’ll reiterate here that the most interesting dynamic of the entire narrative is the relationship between Virgil Cole  and Everett Hitch.  Two gun hands that swagger from town to town to clean up messes, make up “laws” that must be followed and represent order for a small time before moving on, they’ve got a 15-year partnership that goes to the bone marrow.  The Hitch character relays the story in the first person, which makes the wordless conversations between the two men, the subtle nuances of knowledge, the all around ability to intuit each other’s disposition — especially where Hitch is concerned — all the more intriguing.

    Consider a scene that depicts Cole flying off the rails and beating a giant bar patron to a pulp, furious at some outside irritant more than the patron’s loud antics.  Only Hitch can pull him off the man, and he does so with a calm, inevitable touch, lifting Cole off the ground and pulling him back until Cole tells him, twice, and equally calm: “You can let me go.”  It’s an awesome dynamic these two have.

    Cole and Hitch will be played by Ed Harris and Viggo Mortensen respectively in the upcoming film, and I really hope they can pull off this chemistry (I’ll know soon).  The narrative itself might be a touch trite and Renee Zellweger’s Allie character is certainly it’s most irritating aspect, but the peculiarities of character that Parker writes into the two leads more than make up for that.

    So if you’re a fan of the genre, I’d recommend it.  Don’t expect a miracle of substance, but you’ll get some nice grit and hard-nosed simplicity to sink your teeth into.

  • Touchdown in Houston

    No this ain’t football talk. Apologies on the content drought from my end. Travelling, family, friends, bridezillas and all the drama they entail.

    I notice tonight that Anne Thompson has beaten me to the Viggo Mortensen story I was looking forward to cranking out tomorrow. Oh well, it’s worth it just that SOMEONE is writing it. “Good” presenting itself in the festival landscape makes Mortensen a prime commodity if “The Road” and “Appaloosa” didn’t already sell you.

    Speaking of which, Robert Parker’s novel is making for a nice and breezy (if somewhat cliched) in-flight read. I’ve pushed through well over 100 pages since Raleigh.

    What’s most striking is the relationship between Virgil Cole and Everett Hitch, the nuances, the wordless conversations, the ease of the chemistry. If Mortensen and Ed Harris can carry that much across on screen we’ll all be in for a treat.

    But more on that when I finish the book.

    Back in L.A. midnight-ish. Things should be back to normal next week. Thanks to John and Guy for keeping things moving around here.

  • New ‘Appaloosa’ stills — Jeremy Irons!

    Warner Bros. released a slew of new pics from Ed Harris’s “Appaloosa” today, including this rockin’ shot of Jeremy Irons:

    Jeremy Irons in Appaloosa

    Check out the gallery for more.  This film can’t get here soon enough!

  • WB fall preview…nothing for ‘Gran Torino’

    Rope of Silicon beat us to the punch and posted the new shots from Warner Bros. Pictures’ fall preview press kit. There are new shots from “Appaloosa,” “Body of Lies” and “Yes Man,” among others. Then you get to the one we’re all foaming at the mouth for in anticipation, Clint Eastwood’s “Gran Torino,” and there’s nothing. Just this bit of prose:

    Clint Eastwood stars in the drama “Gran Torino,” marking his first film role since his Oscar-winning “Million Dollar Baby.” Eastwood also directs the film in which he plays Walt Kowalski, an iron-willed veteran living in a changing world, who is forced by his immigrant neighbors to confront his own long-held prejudices.

    Wow. Thanks, WB.

    Anyway, I especially dig this new “Appaloosa” image:

    (from left) Viggo Mortensen and Ed Harris in Appaloosa

  • What are the greatest taglines ever?

    In the “Appaloosa” post below, I mention how striking the tagline for the film was: “Feelings get you killed.”  So cold, so direct, so perfect in so many ways.

    It has me wondering, what are the greatest movie taglines of all time?  “Look closer” from “American Beauty” comes to mind.  I also always loved “The man with the barbed-wire soul” from “Hud.”  “Don’t go in the water?”  “In space, no one can hear you scream?”  “An adventure 65 million years in the making?”  “There’s something about your first piece?”

    I don’t know, you guys tell me…what’s the greatest film tagline of all time?

  • ‘Appaloosa’ gets a poster…and a hell of a tagline, too!

    The trailer debuted earlier this week, and now we get a spiffy new one-sheet:

    New Line Cinema's Appaloosa

    I like it.  It’s simple, not TOO cliche, has a sense of danger to it.  But I ADORE the tag line.  “Feelings get you killed.”  How cold-blooded badass is that?!

    Check out the “Appaloosa” buzz page here.

  • ‘Appaloosa’ trailer

    This looks awesome.  Old fashioned, unassuming, shades of the simplicity Kevin Costner brought back to the genre with “Open Range” five years ago.  And I just realized Groundswell and Michael London are behind this.  Very nice.  Anyone with the balls to pump money into westerns at this stage and continue to breathe life into their potential is A-okay with me.

    The film makes its world debut at Toronto in a month.  Can’t wait to hear the reaction.

    httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kg3TaAPELkQ

  • TIFF keeps ’em coming

    Viggo Mortensen in AppaloosaMore announcements out of the press office from Toronto today.

    Great to hear that the first of the potential Oscar films is coming, Ed Harris’s “Appaloosa,” with Viggo Mortensen, Renee Zellweger and Harris starring. Harris’s last directorial effort “Pollock” opened here and went all the way to Oscar night, winning Best Supporting Actress for Marcia Gay Harden.

    Jonathan Demme returns with “Rachel Getting Married” featuring Anne Hathaway as a crisis-prone sister returning home for her sister’s wedding bringing her acid tongue with her to unleash hell.

    From England comes “The Other Man” from director Richard Eyre.  Liam Neeson stars as a husband who discovers his wife (played by Laura Linney) has been receiving emails and messages from another man, portrayed by Antonio Banderas. Enraged and deeply hurt that she would violate the trust he thought they had, he seeks out an encounter with the man.

    The titles have started emerging and we’re look forward to more in the coming weeks. Festival fever is starting!

  • Wells joins the guessing game

    In response to Tom O’Neil’s contender shortlist that I discussed yesterday, Jeff Wells at Hollywood Elsewhere has come up with his own list of Best Picture frontrunners – and predicted also-rans. (O’Neil has since significantly amended his list, by the way – wisely removing “Blindness” and “Synecdoche, New York” from Best Picture consideration, and adding some titles including, bizarrely, “Mamma Mia!” Meanwhile, names like Tommy Lee Jones, Rachel McAdams and Kristin Scott Thomas enter the actors’ mix.)

    Wells’ top choices include “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button” (which he describes as “not the front-runner,  but the contender with the best script”), “Milk,” “Doubt,” “Gran Torino,” “Frost/Nixon,” “W” and “The Visitor.” “W” is a predictably contentious selection; I certainly know a few people who would disagree with his assertion that it “works on the page.”

    Rather more fun is Wells’ rundown of the titles that he thinks don’t have a prayer, which he breaks down as follows:

    “Appaloosa” (possibly worthy Ed Harris western but New Line leftover status dooms it); “Burn After Reading” (a dry Coen brothers goof, not an Oscar film); “Body of Lies” (I know nothing about this brilliant Middle Eastern spy thriller that would qualify it as Oscar bait); “Changeling” (Best Actress nom for Angelina Jolie but the film, while dramatically solid and well made, just isn’t stratospheric enough); “The Dark Knight” (are Tom and Pete having us off?); “Defiance” (an Ed Zwick World War II movie about Russian-Jewish resistance guerillas…hello?); “Mamma Mia!” (all right, that’s enough); “Miracle at St. Anna” (a Spike Lee movie in which a bank teller is shot by an old guy having a memory seizure?) and “Vicki Cristina Barcelona” (can’t and won’t happen).

    I must say I agree with him on most counts there – in particular, I’ll be somewhat surprised if “Miracle at St. Anna” and “Defiance” even turn out to be good films, let alone Best Picture possibilities. I can’t help thinking, though, that some little picture that’s slipped through all these lists will sneak up on us later this year. We sure weren’t talking about “Juno” a year ago.

  • Most anticipated of part two

    MGM\'s Quantum of SolaceLooking ahead to the second half of the year, there are more than a few films floating to the top of my list of anticipations.  Here’s what I’d call the top 10:

    1. “The Dark Knight” (hasn’t budged in six months)
    2.“The Curious Case of Benjamin Button”
    3. “House of Lies”
    4. “Quantum of Solace”
    5. “Appaloosa”
    6; “The Brothers Bloom”
    7. “Milk”
    8. “Australia”
    9. “Pineapple Express”
    10. “Religulous”

    Anticipating with caution: “W”
    Movie I hope disappears before it releases the most: “Ace Ventura Jr.”

    How about you?

  • The western keeps on truckin’

    It’s no real secret that yours truly is in the tank for the western genre.  Being brought up on the films of Sergio Leone and Clint Eastwood tends to make an impact in a young man’s life.  I watch Charles Bronson square off with Henry Fonda on a daily basis.  I’m knee-deep in research on the genre for a grad school thesis.

    I dig it, okay?

    The resurgence of saddles and spurs on the big screen has been moving steadily through the industry.  I don’t think anyone expects a return to the 1950s, with pistol-toting heroes plastered on every television screen and nearly every silver screen across America, but I see these efforts taking on more introspective subject matter, perhaps giving way soon enough to the neo-western.  And it is, after all, time.

    Today I see that screen tests may have been revealed of Thomas Jane in the upcoming DC Comics adaptation “Jonah Hex”  The film is set to be directed by the team behind “Crank,” Mark Neveldine and Brian Taylor.  This might be real, might not, since the duo is filming “Crank 2” in Los Angeles at the moment.  But I can’t say I’m loving it…seems quite amateurish.  Regardless, “Hex” is a hell of a property with some storylines that just sing, and seeing it on the big screen will do this western fanatic a lot of good.

    Meanwhile, of course, Ed Harris is set to release “Appaloosa” later this year, formerly under the New Line Cinema banner and now, presumably, as another in a long tradition of genre entries from Warner Bros. Pictures.  Harris stars along with Viggo Mortensen and Renee Zellweger.

    These efforts are coming on the heels of a tweak in the genre as of late, with the more abstract works of Cormac McCarthy making their way to the screen (“No Country for Old Men,” “The Road” and, soon, “Blood Meridian”) and David Milch showing in the sadly cancelled HBO series “Deadwood” that the genre could be taken to levels almost Shakespearean.  Meanwhile, a revamp of “The Lone Ranger” is looking like a go, with the team behind the “Pirates of the Caribbean” films hoping to bring an element of sensationalism into the mix.

    (more…)

  • OFF THE CARPET: 2008, a year in advance

    Another year, another set of wins…and another look ahead at what’s in store NEXT year.

    It’s never too late to take a long gander at what we might see dominating the film awards landscape in 365 days, and with that in mind, I’ve been doing my usual mulling over the possibilities for a few weeks to put together the sadly thorough examination of the 2008-09 award season that follows. Let’s get into it. There are some major considerations to take into account. right off the top.

    Like Leonardo DiCaprio, for instance, who is set to be the entertainer of the year. With performances in “Body of Lies” (Ridley Scott) and “Revolutionary Road” (Sam Mendes), DiCaprio is working with a duo of awards-proven talent this year. Perhaps that will work against him, much like it did in 2006, and no major Oscar success will come knocking. But we’ll wait until we see the performances. Each of them could be enticing.

    This year’s Best Picture Oscar victor Scott Rudin is back again, by the way, with “Revolutionary Road,” recently inherited by Paramount Vantage and probably one of the true “frontrunners” this far out that we could put our finger on. The only other film in Vantage’s arsenal is Edward Zwick’s “Defiance,” which could simply be a commercial success, but might find its way to multiple nods like “The Last Samurai” and “Blood Diamond” in recent years.

    (more…)