Sigourney Weaves Her Way into TV

And, here I thought Sigourney Weaver was going to do ubiquitous supporting work in films for the rest of her life.  Taking a cue from Glenn Close's cable-TV turn on Damages, Weaver is putting in some time on the smaller screen in a new show called Political Animals.  She'll play a divorced former first lady who becomes Secretary of State.  I suppose the "divorced" portion is supposed to stand in for the thinly veiled part describing a person that sounds an awful lot like Hillary Clinton.  From what I understand, she forms an alliance with an enemy from the media (played by Carla Gugino who has been tooling around Hollywood for years and seems to have gotten a choice role) and I can't imagine her character has gotten to where she has in life baking cookies.  When I first saw the poster at The Grove, I wasn't sure it was Weaver.  And, then I thought she had joined the cast of Sons of Anarchy.  Series premieres July 15th on USA, U-S-A!



Here's to Ripley taking down all the aliens in Washington.

Get away from her, you bitch!

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Katie Holmes Is Divorcing "The Man of Her Dreams"

Last year, I wrote about Tom Cruise's effect on the Oscar chances of the woman in his life.  You can read the long-winded piece here.  I ended the post with somewhat of a suggestion to Katie Holmes, "Girl better snap out of it and get crackin'" in regards to her contract marriage to the man she once told Seventeen magazine in the 1990s she dreamt of marrying.  I read somewhere around the time they first started dating before they had their daughter that the marital contract would be for five years.  Or, maybe it was a rumor or I imagined it.  [I imagined it.]  I can't remember, though.  But, it all makes sense now.  And, if it's true [it's not], he must have somehow plied her to stay passed through the openings of M:I 4 and Rock of Ages, but not Oblivion at the end of this year.  Perhaps with now two in the can (along with Jack Reacher), one about to lens, and three announced projects, his career is back on track (well, Ages was a blunder, but are people going to hold him responsible for it?--I can't imagine things going as smoothly again for him as they did in his 20s and early 30s).  At age 33 (her Jesus year), the marriage did nothing for Holmes (except maybe give her a "comeback story status") and she is finally moving on.  Right now, she should be striking while the iron is hot, but hers has frozen over.  At one point, she was making daring independent choices, while attached to one of Hollywood's most successful franchises.  It will be interesting to see how she reinvents herself.  She's basically starting over (not quite like Winona Ryder, but close) with no momentum to fuel her other than some people's good vibes.  Considering her choices of the last five years (both things she did and didn't do), however, she needs a serious Scientological deprogramming before she moves forward.  But, at least she's out.  


[Image via Who Dated Who?]

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Opening This Weekend: People Tyler Perry Likes (i.e. Magic Mike)

This weekend Luke Kirby will not be opening Magic Mike

Well, we've been waiting for Magic Mike and his posse for ages, and they are finally here!  Channing Tatum, Matt Bomer, Joe Manganiello, and Alex Pettyfer, playing strippers?  Four cheers for Hollywood!  And, a fifth, I suppose, if you're like most of my girlfriends who swear by Matthew McConaug-Hey-A!  Mark Wallberg won't be taking off his clothes (to my knowledge) like he did in Boogie Nights to show off a prosthetic, but he will have a nude costar in Ted.  Mila Kunis also costars.  The trailer I watched used The Heavy's cover of Kool Moe Dee's "How Ya Like Me Now," also utilized by Horrible Bosses last year.  Wahlberg has taken a great interest in comedy lately and this is The Family Guy Seth MacFarlane's first time writing, producing, or directing a feature-lenght film.  It's probably worth a look.  Stepping out on his own from under JJ Abrams' umbrella is Alex Kurtzman.  He gives Chris Pine the leading man treatment in People Like Us, three years post-Star Trek (guess that's why he left his boutique agency).  

[Photo via My New Plaid Pants]

For those who are immune to Tatum's charm and/or hot male stripping, you can check out Tyler Perry's latest (though, I imagine he'll be hosting a private Magic screening in his home).  Perry, whose living-in-his-car-ass has been kissed by Oprah and his life has never been the same since, is one of the few people who can actually turn a legitimate profit at the box-office.  I just wished I could enjoy his crappy movies.  I honestly do.  But, I don't have the chip in my brain to allow it.  His movies either have his name or the moniker of his famous alter-ego in each title (or both, I don't know; there's a surprising discrepancy between IMDb and Box Office Mojo).  This time, it's his drag persona's turn. She's hiding out in Madea's Witness Protection Program.  Perhaps that's where she should stay.  The last time you (surely not me) or someone else saw her, she had a Big Happy Family.  Her Madea franchise is her most profitable, so it's not surprisingly that the years between these cheaply made films with a built-in audience is getting shorter and shorter.  Also not surprising is Perry's appeal doesn't extend beyond North American (or U.S.) borders, so the rest of the world doesn't seem to be buying into her bullshit.  And the last one only made 2/3rds of the previous installment when Madea Goes to Jail.  


Americans and the rest of the Western civilized world are allowed to live as whomever they choose.  If you're not breaking the law (or have the money for the best lawyer in town), you can make whatever decision you want to.  People can criticize you, but the more money you have, the more protected you are from their slings and arrows.  There is just something about a grown man doing drag who just doesn't simply acknowledge the obvious.  And it only takes three words (two of which make a contraction).  Not that I need to know about his personal life, it's just so awkward and (not?) out there.  While it's hard to compare it to an actor doing black-face, it runs through a similar vein.  I can't describe it any other way.  But, it's his life, so I should just shut up, right?  Still, by not coming out, he "protects" his base of audience (which isn't exactly experiencing a growth spurt as of late), and continues to perpetuate his multimillion dollar empire from his fat Atlanta throne.  Am I jealous?  Perhaps.  Do I admire him?  In some ways.  His rags-to-riches story is awe-inspiring, to say the least.  Do I respect him?  Like, he or anyone even gives a shit.  Ack!  I need to stopping hating on Perry.  Sorry to be so alienating.  I hope this is the last time I am.  But, be forewarned, he'll be smelling up Morgan Freeman's legacy as Alex Cross later this year.  Ugh.  But, hey, he didn't write, produce, or direct, so perhaps it might be good.  We'll see.  


There are A LOT of mainstream choices this weekend (which is rare), though, if you'll note, every lead in all four films are MALE.  It will be interesting to see how things will flesh out, so to speak.  Already having opened on Wednesday is the much anticipated Beasts of the Southern Wild, which has wowed audiences at Sundance, Cannes, and LA film festivals.  From Toronto last year, is Sarah Polley's Take This Waltz with Michelle Williams and Luke Kirby.  Unforgivable just played at LAFF; I had a ticket and couldn't go.  What a mistake!  There is also The Last Ride starring all growed-up Elliott from E.T. as a drunk and disillusioned Hank Williams.  Egads, everybody stop getting old!  And Jonathan Demme directs a documentary about another music legend in Neil Young Journeys.

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A Page from Lawrence's Sterling Silver Playbook

The trailer just hit for Silver Linings Playbook. David O. Russell's new film, based on Matthew Quick's novel about mental-healthy challenged characters, looks kind of schmaltzy, but pretty darn good, none-the-less. This will be Jennifer Lawrence's first pairing with Bradley Cooper before next year's Serena. I haven't read the book, but it looks like a great role for her. Having taken on so much serious fare already, the movie looks to give her a slight comical bent with still the dramatic material she is so comfortable with. It also stars Robert DeNiro, Jacki Weaver, Julia Stiles (who bears a small resemblance to Lawrence) and, gasp, Chris Tucker!

He hasn't been in a non-Rush Hour movie since the 1990s! It's good to see him back. And he gets one of the best moments in the trailer. Tucker (taking in Lawrence's beauty): "She's fine." Cooper: "She Is My Friend ... with an 'f.'" Tucker: "A capital 'F'" ... [Cooper overlapping Tucker: "For friend"]/Tucker: "she's Fine." Made on a budget of $26M and lensed in the Philadelphia-area, the film drops on the 21st of November. This will be one of TWC's big Oscar bids for the year and includes Cooper as a producer. The cinematographer Masanobu Takayanagi did the camerawork for The Grey, Warrior, and next year's Out of the Furnace. Editor Jay Cassidy was behind The Pledge, Brothers, and the documentary An Inconvenient Truth.

[Video via Deadline]

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Opening Title Sequence: Devil in a Blue Dress

Conversations regarding creating the opening title sequence for Devil in a Blue Dress included many different ideas; someone suggested to embellish the film noir aspect of the genre. Director Carl Franklin wanted to try something less conventional and capture a feel for the times. WPA artist Archibald John Motley, Jr's "Bronzeville at Night" (1949) did exactly that. While the oil painting depicted a Chicago street scene, the filmmakers thought it could sub in for Los Angeles. Cinematographer Tak Fujimoto used his keen eye to languidly canvass the period slice of night life and thought it would be cool to end the sequence on, well, a girl in a blue dress. Or, er, well, a pantsuit, but notice how there's another woman at the bottom center of the forefront wearing a blue dress who seems to have lost something, while getting shown up by a hussy in red right behind her.

The song “Westside Baby” provided the 2 1/2 minute soundtrack. Musician Aaron T-Bone Walker worked various clubs on Central Avenue of Los Angeles where most of this film took place and recorded the song on Black & White Records in 1948. Its mellowness contrasts the "shout and jump" music that made him a huge star of that decade. A precursor to rock and roll stars of the 1950s, Walker would throw his guitar on his back and do the splits, while girls threw their underwear at him. Relaxed, understated, it's an enjoyable appetizer to this 90s neo-noir flic. Franklin has also directed such diverse projects as One False Move and One True Thing. The former helped make Billy Bob Thornton a known entity in Hollywood before he made his breakout Slingblade, the latter got Meryl Streep one of her many Oscar nominations in the 1990s.

Archibald Motley's "Bronzeville at Night"

Previous Editions:

Devil in a Blue Dress

Working Girl

The Addams Family

Beetlejuice

The Birdcage

My Best Friend's Wedding

To Die For

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo

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Movie Spoiler THE GREY (after review)

Movie Spoiler: The Grey (after the review). Joe Carnahan was “the next big thing” years ago with drug film Narc as his calling card and after falling out of an M:I film, he kind of disappeared all together. But, with The Grey, he makes good on the promise he displayed initially with a story about a man (Liam Neeson) who mourns the loss of his wife and finds himself with six others battling a pack of wolves in the Alaskan wilderness (filmed in Canada). As the men try to survive their bleak circumstances, the voracious dogs pick them off Ten Little Indians style. It's Jaws in the Arctic and it’s personal. Neeson has now made three recent studio action movies, costing around $25 – 30M; The Grey having tripled, Unknown quadrupling, and Taken octupleting their respective budgets in box-office receipts worldwide. I used to write this bad-ass off. This is what I get for judging a book by its cover: missing one of the best action films of the year on the big screen.

It's an allegory of the randomness of fatality, and relying only on our best logic to survive this world. “Fate didn’t give a fuck. Dead is dead.” Harsh conditions require blunt reactions; to beat your enemy, you must meet him at its level. Some read The Grey as an anti-drilling metaphor: mess with Nature and you're going to have to pay a price (and it's the front-line troops who always offer up their lives). For every action, there's a reaction. It's simple. However, any "pro-environment" message one can glean from the movie's plot is dwarfed by its greater themes of man verses animal and other demons within him. This is a solid thriller, regardless of your politics. And, Mother Nature, naturally, is a force to be reckoned with.

[Image via The Movie Zones]

The camera pauses on evocative imagery between the tense action sequences. The high-contrasted, crisp photography offers some breathtaking imagery of the snow-drift planes of Northern British Columbia, reminiscent of Chris Nolan's Insomnia. The reserved Neeson give a personal performance. His wife of fifteen years Natasha Richardson (one of Vanessa Redgrave’s daughters) died in the Winter of 2009 in a freak and seemingly innocuous skiing accident, leaving behind two sons. Two years later, filming began on this ruminating film about a man mourning the loss of the love of his life. “Not a second goes by when I’m not thinking about you. You left me and I can’t get you back … I move like I imagine the damned do, cursed.” The Grey’s grand scope sometimes gets the best of it. There is clique campire talk about masculine stereotypes, God, etc, but the performances and Carnahan's pensive direction save the proceedings. The director could have stood to have been a tad more judicious with his use of flashback, as towards the end, he overindulges slightly into the maudlin. The score could easily be accused of not earning every last one of its tears. And the relentlessness of the wolves gets to be too unreal at times. But despite the heavy-handedness, it’s a moving film no less, if you’re willing to see the filmmakers through.

Movie Spoiler Summary

The Grey is the middle ground between darkness and light, as Ottway (Liam Neeson) fights to get through the loss of his wife (Anne Openshaw), rather than get sucked into an emotional vacuum he will never be able to return from. He narrates the first part, as we oscillate between different points in time not far from each other (maybe a day apart), as well as memories of his partner (which emerge through various points of the movie). We learn he works for a petroleum company in the Alaska. At a bar, he reminisces about his wife. Outside, the next day, he takes aim and kills a wolf. Later, he takes the same rifle and shoves it into his mouth. A wolf howls setting off a chorus from the pack and he chooses to live.

On a plane to his next job, Ottway holds a letter, as his coworkers board. A guy named Flannery (Joe Anderson) sits next to him and keeps popping off, referencing the Werner Herzog documentary Grizzly Man. Once the plane takes off, it begins experiencing turbulence, making the men more and more agitated. In a chilling shot, as the camera dollies backwards down the hull of the plane, we can see the breaths of the men. In a well-executed harrowing scene, the system begins to short circuit, there’s trouble with the engine, the plane tears apart, and crashes.

Ottway wakes up in the wide-open freezing snow-laden cold, hundreds of feet away from the crash site. He has had better luck than most and begins to attend to the passengers who survived and are in need of care. Flannery and Hernandez (Ben Bray) are both in shock. Lewenden (James Badge Dale) is losing a fatal amount of blood and Ottway talks him through dying in a tearful scene. After he passes, he takes a count of the seven who are alive. Taking the lead, he decides their #1 priority is building a fire. While they collect combustible items, one of the men, Diaz (Frank Grill) comments, “I got a book; it’s called We’re All Fucked. It’s a best-seller.” Later that night, while one of the more injured men is unattended by the fire, Ottway finds a wolf munching down on him. He’s attacked, and the other men appear and scare him away. They tend to his injuries. Ottway takes one of the survivors to task for pillaging the dead.

While the men chat around the fire, the wolves appear again in the dark, threatening. After they leave, the men fall asleep. Hernandez (Ben Bray) is attacked and killed by one of the wolves while going to the bathroom during his watch. The next morning, Ottway wakes up to find his mutilated body, with bloody wolf tracks trailing off from the corpse. Ottway makes the executive decision to leave the crash site and look for help. He also decides that they should collect the wallets of the dead to return to their respective families. One of the men, Hendrick (Dallas Roberts), says a few words for the departed before they venture off. Through the unforgiving wind and snow, the trek is slow going. Flannery falls back too far and gets attacked and killed by a small pack in the light of day. As it gets darker, the men become open targets and the wolves start in on them. They manage to build a fire and scare them off. Around the campfire, Ottway starts to prep the men on protecting themselves. The incredulous Diaz, because there has to be an antagonist within the men, pulls a knife on Ottway, but the more resourceful Irishman overpowers him. “Cut this shit out, you hear me.”

A black omega wolf shows up to test the men and break up the fight. He leaves, but it’s only the calm before the storm--another attack. After killing a wolf, says Ottway, “Let’s get a large branch, sharpen the end of it. Shove it up this thing’s ass. We’re going to cook the son of a bitch. Then, we’re going to eat it.” While they dine on dog meat, the wolves start howling. “Fuck with us and we’ll fuck with you. You hear that?!” shouts Diaz. “You’re not the animals. We’re the animals.” Diaz goes a little ape shit, carves the head off from the spit, and tosses it out towards the pack. 

Dermot Mulroney as Talget 

The men take torches to a new campsite and build a fire leading a discussion about fate. The ever pessimistic/ realistic Diaz: “Fate doesn’t give a fuck. Dead is dead.” Burke (Nonso Anozie) wakes up hallucinating about his sister. The guys continue to exchange thoughts and memories. Ottway recalls one of his father’s poems, “Once more into the fray, is the last good fight I will ever know; live and die in this day; live and die in this day.” The men brave a blizzard the next morning, which robs Burke of his life. Ottway reminisces about his wife and then realizes they’re in a logging area.

Hundreds of feet up, they locate a river below. Tied to a make-shift rope, Hendrick leaps across into a forest of trees, with the hope of being caught by a bed of branches. With not enough rope available, in a thrilling, but implausible moment, it snaps from the tree it’s tied to and Diaz catches it just before losing their way across. With the rope tied to both ends, one by one, the men travel across, first Diaz, then Ottway, and, finally, Talget (Dermot Mulroney), who has a grave fear of heights and loses his glasses in the process of climbing across. The rope breaks sending him cascading down to the ground where he is visited by a vision of his daughter, before it’s feeding time and he’s killed by the wolves.

After hiking a distance to the river, an injured and bereft Diaz decides that he is dead weight and prefers to give in to the elements. As they continue on, Hendrick asks Ottway about the night he almost committed suicide. The wolves come after them sending them into the river. A log stops Hendrick floating uncontrollably down the river, trapping him underneath the water. Ottway tries to save him, but he drowns. He prays to the sky, looks through all of the pictures from the wallets he collected from the deceased, as well as the letter he has been gazing at throughout the movie. The wolves approach him and he has one more flashback to his wife, who is on her deathbed. He begins to wrap his knuckles MacGyver style in small bottles, before crushing them into shards. He recites his father’s poem, and the camera blacks out as he begins his attack. 

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Movie Spoiler SPIDER-MAN 2 (after capsule review)

Spider-Man 2: Movie Spoiler Summary (after capsule review).  A solid companion piece to the initial installment (though, if I was forced to Sophie’s Choice it, I would choose the 2002 movie), Spider-Man 2 almost matched its reviews and box-office receipts.  Many said it was the better film, perhaps The Best Superhero Film Ever Made (which would be retracted by most everyone after the The Dark Knight).  Opinions have cooled since then, but, for a sequel, Alvin Sargent's (who would write the next one, as well as the latest) screenplay continues in the spirit of the original and expands the ideas it first presented.  The villain Doc Ock (the superbly cast Alfred Molina) here isn't such a bad guy, only destroyed by personal loss and the desire to create something the world has never seen before.  The fear here is technology taking over humanity through people’s own unexamined volitions, where one's self-determination is handed over to a force of its own creation.  Doc Ock's intentions are good and true, but they cloud his judgment and provide Peter Parker's (Tobey Maguire) main obstacle, as he wrestles with the challenge of trying to have a normal life, while trying to serve a city who needs him.  The editing is efficient and the tone never goes for an awkward bravado, though Ock could have stood to have a few of his own memorable lines.  Spidey is a lit bit more cartoonish this time (which is strange, because if memory serves, I thought the opposite, having only originally seen the trailers years ago), but its effect is kind of negligible at this point (maybe I don't care anymore).    

[Image vis Cloud Architecture Design]

Maguire Illustrated

Movie Spoiler Summary
The opening credits are a smart homage to the original, incorporating the web motif in a different manner with illustrated stills from memorable moments from the first film.  It sometimes evokes a neoplasticism.  My only gripe is that it didn’t include the scene of Uncle Ben (Cliff Robertson) and Peter (Tobey Maguire) in his car, as that is where the famous line, "With great power comes great responsibility,"(though the film proper eventually revisits that scene) is first delivered.  Like the first film, Peter starts the movie narrating while the camera backs away from a billboard of MJ (Kirsten Dunst) who works as a model and actress.  Parker is employed as a pizza delivery person and has an impossibly short period of time for his next job.  He changes into his Spider-Man costume, but fails to make his destination on time.  Emily Deschanel plays the receptionist who tells him that she’s not going to pay him, as he's late; she would go on shortly to star in the TV show Bones.  The pizza restaurant fires him.  

Raimi is kind enough to give us a brief, gratuitous glimpse at Maguire

At the Daily Bugle, Peter is barely hanging onto his status as freelance photographer.  On campus where Peter is a student, he runs into Dr. Curt Connors (Dylan Baker) who expresses concern over his slouching performance.  At Aunt May’s (Rosemary Harris), MJ and Henry (James Franco) surprise Peter with a birthday celebration.  Henry and Peter talk about OsCorp’s work with Dr. Otto Octavius (Alred Molina).  Henry still curses Spider-Man for his father's death.  Aunt May is getting foreclosed on and Peter still feels guilty for Uncle Ben’s death.  Outside the house, Peter wants to kiss MJ, but he can’t.  On his way up to his crappy apartment, the landlord Mr. Ditkovoch (Elya Baskin) gives Peter a difficult time about the rent.  At OsCorp, Peter meets Dr. Otto Octavius who introduces him to a new invention.  

Queer As Folk's Hal Sparks

Peter decides to take a break from Spider-Man to watch MJ perform in The Importance of Being Earnest.  However, he gets caught in a high-speed chase and decides the streets of New York need him more than MJ does.  Peter arrives late to the theatre and the usher won't seat him.  While waiting outside after the play, he witnesses her meeting John Jameson (Daniel Gillies), current boyfriend.  While slinging webs, Parker loses some of his abiltities.  In an elevator, he runs into Hal Sparks.  Peter tries to explain his absence to MJ over the phone.  

One of the better super villains

At OsCorp, Dr. Octavius demonstrates his new invention—a tennacled contraption that locks right into his spinal cord and sends signals to his brain.  During a successful “fusion reaction,” while trying to harness the power of the sun, things go terribly wrong.  Peter changes into Spider-Man and tries to pull the plug, but Dr. Octavius stops him.  As a result, his wife Rosalie dies and OsCorp is destroyed.  During an operation, doctors try to remove the tentacles, but Dr. Octavius or “Doc Ock” as the Daily Bugle will call him, comes back to life to attack them all in a brilliant scene that could only come from the visual eye of Sam Raimi.  Peter gets a photo assignment to cover Jameson’s (J.K. Simmons) son, an astronaut.  Doc Ock visits the old lab site, now guided by voices in his head attributable to his four new appendages, deciding to rebuild.  Peter accompanies Aunt May to the bank, where the loan officer Mr. Jacks (Joel McHale) turns her down.  Doc Ock arrives and breaks into the vault.  When Spider-Man tries to stop him, he kidnaps Aunt May and begins climbing up the bank building.  After a high-rise scuffle which involves Aunt May dropping to her death a couple of times, Spider-Man returns her to safety.  

Vintage Raimi

At the party, Peter takes pictures while Harry drinks himself silly.  Christine Estabrook (the Broadway actress memorably played Martha Huber from Desperate Housewives, as well as Joan's mother on Mad Men; as well, she attended the Yale School of Drama with classmates such as Meryl Streep, Christopher Durang, and Wendy Wasserstein, among others) does a pleasant drop playing Jameson’s wife.  Peter tries to win MJ over with poetry, as she is there with John, but fails, as he has already asked for her hand in marriage.  Then, Harry lays into Peter about his loyalty to Spider-Man.  While slinging around as the masked crusader, Peter loses his abilities again.  And the press still paints him out to be a bad guy.  Doc Ock continues to tool away on his master plan.  Peter shares his emotional dilemma with his doctor and then dreams about Uncle Ben.  He decides to throw away his superhero costume and put Spider-Man behind him.  He returns back to a normal life as Peter, in a montage set to BJ Thomas’ “Raindrops Keep Fallin’ on My Head.”  Peter hopes to win MJ back, but she tells him it’s too late.  Spider-Man’s costume is delivered to the Daily Bugle, much to the pleasure of Jameson.  Peter witnesses a mugging, but is powerless.  He visits Uncle Ben’s grave with Aunt May.  At home, Peter admits to her what happened the night Uncle Ben died.  She doesn’t take the news very well.  

Peter can't escape MJ

Doc Ock repairs the fusion reactor and then pays Harry a visit in search of more Tridium to fuel it.  The only way Harry will agree to giving him some is if Doc Ock brings him Spider-Man.  Crime and mayhem continue to go up.  Michael Edward Thomas (who was also in the first film) shows he knows how to scream and gets Peter’s attention, who rescues a kid from a burning building.  Mr. Ditkovich’s daughter Ursula (Mageina Tovah) pays Peter a visit, who gives him a note from Aunt May.  She’s moving out of the house and tells Peter that she loves him and thanks him for telling her the truth.  In not so many words, Aunt May encourages Peter to return to being Spider-Man.  At their apartment, MJ tries to recreate “that kiss” with John.  It looks hot, but something’s not right for MJ.  She sits down with Peter to talk about being together, but, his priorities have changed yet again, and they can’t have a meeting of the minds.  She asks him to kiss her when they’re interrupted by a chaotic visit from Doc Ock starting with a car smashing through a window almost killing them.  He tells Peter to have Spider-Man meet him and grabs MJ as collateral.  

Sometimes a hero needs a lift

Unconscious moshing

When he learns that Spider-Man is back in action, Jameson is none too pleased.  The web-slinger and Doc Ock engage in an alteration which takes place mostly on a moving train (is it not called a subway when it’s moving out in the open? … do you stop calling something a bird when it lands on the ground?).  Peter stops the train from careening off an unfinished upper portion of the tracks.  After he passes out, he wakes up to realize that everyone on the train has learned his identity.  A boy hands him his mask promising him his secret is safe in a teary moment that is in stark contrast to today’s need to know everything about everybody.  Doc Ock overpowers Spider-Man and returns to Harry with his body, taking off with the Tridium.  Peter’s best friend pulls out a dagger and rips Spider-Man’s mask off, waking him up inquiring about MJ’s whereabouts.  While Harry is wrapped up in his father's death (get over it already!), Peter informs him, “There are bigger things happening here than me and you.”  

Spider-Man shows up at Doc Ock’s and begins to pummel him.  He takes his mask off in order to convince him to shut down the reactor.  “Sometimes, to do what’s right, we have to be steady and give up the thing we want the most, even our dreams.”   Doc Ock takes his words to heart and overpowers the grip the tentacles have on him to drown the reactor in the river, committing suicide in the process.  MJ sees Peter as Spider-Man for the first time and he confesses his love for her.  Doc Ock goes down with the reactor reminiscent of Alien3.  

The angle on Franco's torso is just perfect here

After saving her life, Peter informs MJ that they can never be together.  Back at the Osborn penthouse, harry gets a visit from his dead father Norman (William Dafoe) as his reflection in the tall mirror from the first installment.  When Norman demands he avenge his death, Harry throws the dagger into the mirror, sending shards of glass everywhere.  Behind the broken mirror,  he inadvertently discovers the secret lab of his father which housed everything Green Goblin.  At the church, MJ stands up John at the altar and shows up at Peter’s.  “Isn’t it about time, somebody saved your life?” she asks.  It’s implied that the two will be together and Spidey goes slinging through the city amongst various helicopters on his way to stop more crime. 

My favorite shot in the film

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Oscar Outlook 2012: Trouble with the Curve

Amy Adams dancing with Pip-squeak

It has been almost twenty years since Clint Eastwood has stepped in front of the camera for anyone else but himself.  The last time he gave up control as director he was In the Line of Fire for Wolfgang Peterson, a highlight in the career of the German filmmaker who showed such promise in Das Boot.  Trouble with the Curve will mark the directing debut of Eastwood's producing partner Robert Lorenz, who began with Eastwood as first assistant director on Absolute Power.  The two have been working closely together ever since.  Randy Brown's (yeah, I don't know who he is either) screenplay concerns a recruiter (Eastwood) in his twilight years bonding with his daughter (Amy Adams).  I take exception to the film's subject matter, because Eastwood is going to live forever, so it's impossible for him to be in his "twilight years."

Steve Burns = Matt Bush ?

The cast includes John Goodman, Robert Patrick, Matthew Lillard, some former member of 'N Sync who wants to be taken seriously as an actor, Chelcie Ross (one of Detective Nick Curran's adversaries in Basic Instinct), Mr. Amy Adams (Darren Le Gallo),  nepotastic Scott Eastwood, and some new hottie named Matt Bush who looks like the reincarnation of Steven Burns from Blue's Clues!  Like the director, many of the major talent behind the camera are part of Eastwood's posse including editors Joel Cox (won an Oscar for Unforgiven, nominated for Million Dollar Baby) and Gary Roach, cinematographer Tom Stern (nominated for Changeling), production designer James J. Murakami (nominated for Changeling), and Art Director Patrick M. Sullivan Jr.

Trouble filmed in Georgia earlier this year and Warner Brothers will release it on the 28th of September.  Go Team Eastwood.

[First Image via On Location Vacation]

Also on the Radar:

Anna Karenina     Amour     Argo     Beasts of the Southern Wild     The Bourne Legacy     The Dark Knight Rises     Dark Shadows     Django Unchained     Gangster Squad     Great Expectations     The Great Gatsby     The Hobbit     Hope Springs     The Hunger Games     Hyde Park on the Hudson     Killing Them Softly     Lawless     Lincoln     Lola Versus     Lovelace     Low Life     Magic Mike     The Master     Les Misérables     Life of Pi     Moonrise Kingdom     The Paperboy     People Like Us     Prometheus     To Rome with Love     Ruby Sparks     Rust & Bone     Savages     Seeking a Friend for the End of the World     The Silver Linings Playbook     Smashed     The Surrogate     Trouble with the Curve     Won't Back Down 


The Avengers     The Amazing Spider-Man     Men in Black III

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Movie Spoiler PERFECT SENSE (after capsule review)

Perfect Sense: Movie Spoiler Summary (after capsule review).  The very dystopic concept of Perfect Sense is ultimately a lesson in learning to appreciate the senses we have and how easily it is for us as a human race to accept certain changes we have no control over and submit to them as a new normal.  We as human beings rely so much on our senses, that without, we lose the ability to relate to each other and build healthy relationships.  It puts up several obstacles in Susan (Eva Green) and Michaels’ (Ewan McGregor) relationship.  And there is some wonderfully maudlin music, but the all-encompassing reach of the director gives the film a forced and generic feel.  It doesn't help either that some of the scenes are just ridiculously stupid and/or gross.  But, maybe that's the point.  Desperation ain't pretty.  However, the film just seemed like one big excuse to get Green and McGregor naked for half the film.  If there is one thing this film taught me is that Green is a force to be reckoned with.  While she doesn’t do anything especially extraordinarily, she undeniably holds the screen with her presence.  And, I hadn’t realized that she has actually taken on several projects, albeit some low-quality, where her character drives the story.  Mixed with her higher-budget affairs (I haven’t seen her career-defining performance in the Casino Royale remake), me thinks that Green will soon figure into the Oscar game in a few years.  Just.  A.  Hunch.  

[Image via ChiTownFlix]

Movie Spoiler Summary 

Katy Engels narrates [Thank you to anonymous for the correction] this story about epidemiologist Susan (Eva Green, in all her black mascara and eye-liner glory) in Perfect Sense, starting with a scene on a boardwalk with her spitting from a bridge.  She gets introspective and talks about all the different things in the world, while footage plays illustrating her monologue.  Ewan McGregor as Michael wakes up to the nude Green and softly kicks her out of bed.  He claims he can’t sleep with another person under the covers.  At the beach, Susan walks with her sister (or mother) and throws stones at seagulls.  In a cool shot, Michael rides his boat and then wheels out some contents, while melancholy music plays.  He meets with a guy, who shares a cigarette and mumbles something, perhaps about the brand of tobacco.  A colleague Steven Montgomery (Stephen Dillane) bumps into Susan at a parking garage.  They walk into a hospital and a woman grabs their attention as she has a loved one who is suffering from a strange affliction.

Steven and Susan enter a control room to interview the man, quarantined behind a glass partition.  He’s forward and disgruntled.  Steven explains to Susan this strange phenomenon that has occurred in the last twenty-four hours.  At the restaurant where Michael works as a chef, a coworker gives him a hard time about his treatment of Susan.  There’s a lot of camera cutting and busyness, because, you know, it’s a restaurant and all.  At her home, Susan makes a crappy microwave meal for herself, smokes, and talks on the phone.  Outside downstairs, Michael asks for a cigarette and a light.  She obliges, but plays hard to get.  At work, she brainstorms with colleagues about the sudden disease that has erupted and what might its origins be.  A montage of people in a display of forced and pathetic sulking gets underway as the plague begins to take its toll.  Susan explains that Severe Olfactory System (SOS) results in losing one’s sense of smell and, eventually, every human succumbs to it.  

We hear the voice of Barack Obama and other figures manipulated to make it seem like they’re talking about this epidemic.  Michael rides his bike around Glasgow.  There is a great deal of emptiness.  The restaurant is slow.  James (McGregor’s old Trainspotting costar Ewen Bremner—you know the one who had the scene with the bed-sheets) breaks out the laughing gas and has a little fun.  They all leave.  Susan arrives home where Michael is standing outside his work.  She addresses him as “sailor” and then goes on to explain the origins.  He invites her in: “People aren’t eating in restaurants these days and we’ve got a lot of spare food.”   She sits on the counter and wolfs down his cuisine and then starts to break down over the thought of her father.  He hands her a tissue letting her know that it’s clean, before she engages in some more laughable crying.  He takes her home across the street through the rain.  They end up in bed together, but he still has his tank top on, so that doesn’t mean anything.  But, then, I’m sorry, this is ridiculous, he starts crying too.  This is the point of the film where it officially becomes a parody of itself and/or a skit on SNL.  The next morning, Michael wakes up to find Susan at her kitchen table.  “It’s gone, the smell, all gone.”  She serves him some coffee.  He references their “crazy evening,” lights up a fag, and leaves. 

Ewan pre-Trainspotting

At the lab, Susan and Steven examine cages upon cages of rabbits and discuss Michael.  The restaurant regroups and prepares to cook for a clientele who have lost the of smell, along with them.  Susan narrates another one of her montages full of photographs, including one of McGregor from his youth, “The food becomes sweeter, saltier, more sweet, more sour, you get used to it.”  Michael carries on a conversation with Susan while he rides his bike around the alley below her apartment.  They take a stroll and watch a spoken-word street performer who plays the violin.  They go back to her apartment and have some adult fun.  He tells her how he can’t sleep in bed with another person, and she ultimately kicks him out of hers.  He gives her his business card and rides his bike to a cemetery where he meets the parents of a former relationship.  The mother chides him for forgetting flowers for “her.”  Susan walks with her sister. 

James talks about fruit-flavored oxygen with Michael before Susan goes into yet another one of her narrated montages discussing religious idolatry and UFOs.  At the lab, Stephen begins to have a reaction and Susan helps administer a sedative.  In the parking garage, a blonde assists Susan who begins to have trouble breathing.  Likewise, at the restaurant, Michael is on the floor going a little bit mad.  Rather comically, Susan begins eating flower pedals and everyone at the restaurant devours all the food before them in grotesque fashion, complete with sound effects.  It’s one big mass festival of consuming anything chewable or drinkable around them, including a jug of olive oil.  “This is how the sense of taste disappears from our world,” Susan explains.  Michael and Susan end up in bed together.  They make love some more, seeing how Michael can’t sleep in bed with another person there, so he needs to pass the time somehow.  That, and he’s with Eva Green.  Duh. 

Shaving cream for dessert with a bonus bar of soap 

The more optimistic Michael has a discussion with a colleague about their low customer turnout.  Susan chimes in again with a narrated montage and explains, “Slowly, things returned to normal and life goes on.”  The mood improves at the restaurant.  Susan shaves Michael in the bathtub and they begin to consume the shaving cream.  Dried off, they dance and exchange secrets.  They share a laugh about their shortcomings as people and Susan labels them, “Mr. and Mrs. Asshole,” before they go out to a club. 

Susan and her colleagues converse with a scientist via a monitor.  He starts to panic and the world then experiences Severe Hearing Loss Syndrome (SHLS), complete with narrated montage care of Susan.  Michael and Susan are back in bed and he takes a Polaroid of the two of them.  There’s business at the hospital between Steven and Susan.  Officials shut down the restaurant, including one guy with a hair across his ass, and are given orders as to how they can proceed.  Kicked out of her apartment, wearing surgical masks, Susan and Michael drive to his place.  He starts to wig out and tells her, “You’re just a pair of ears and a mouth, an asshole and a cunt.”    He keeps repeating “Fat and fucking flour” while damaging his apartment.  Naturally, she high-tales the Hell out of there.  On the streets, she listens to the cries of people while Michael loses his ability to hear after his tirade.  He’s approached by men in quarantine outfits and forced back into his apartment.  Michael tries to call Susan while she’s busy going mad at the hospital.  He watches his television inform deaf people to stay at home.  The rabbits run rampant at the hospital with their monkey friend when Susan wakes up deaf herself.  At this point, I imagine that the last twenty minutes will not have any audio, which is a God-send, but I fear that won’t stop an unnarrated montage from happening, as life settles into the soundless frontier.  But, as it turns out, there is narration.  Drats.  This is the part of the movie, where, like movies with subtitles, you have to watch and can’t just get by listening to.

She really is gorgeous

Michael visits the restaurant where he frightens one of his coworkers.  Susan now lives with her sister and they communicate via tablet and pen, as does everyone else who doesn’t know sign language.  Predictably, business returns to normal.  Michael frequents a club to try to feel some music.  And we get another narrated montage from Susan.  People smarten up and start practicing what it’s like to be blind (you know it's coming).  Susan enjoys her nieces and nephews.  Michael tries to locate Susan, but she’s busy with her narration about the Ice Age and warns that blindness is next (Not to be confused with the awful Fernando Meirelles film), naturally.  The montage becomes much more optimistic and shows people enjoying each other’s company.  Susan and Michael reunite and we get to see how pretty Green is, before they both lose their sight.  “It’s dark now, but they feel each other’s breath … oblivious to the world around them.”  

Check Out These Other Spoiler Summary/Reviews:

Eden Lake

A Lonely Place to Die

Perfect Sense

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Fais-moi de ton mieux: L'Histoire d'Adèle H.

The "Best" Shot

The Film Experience has recommenced its third season of Hit Me With Your Best Shot.  This week it's François Truffaut's L'Histoire d'Adèle H. or The Story of Adele H.  I imagine Nat chose it for thematic reasons which I won't divulge to those unfamiliar with the plot, as I was.  Let's just say Father "H" is a big deal and everything that happened is true.  Internationally renown French actress Isabelle Adjani played the title role, which led to her first of two deserved Oscar nominations (the second would arrive fourteen years later for Camille Claudel).  France produces a major actress every decade like clockwork and Adjani would be its spokeswoman for (being born in) the 1950s (perhaps the decade by decade rundown would make a fun future post).  


Her Adèle is a petulant young woman obsessed with British Lieutenant Albert Pinson (the looker Bruce Robinson, whose heavenly face may live on in Chace Crawford, would eventually be nominated for writing the screenplay for The Killing Fields; he'd subsequently screen-write and direct Withnail & I, Jennifer 8, and The Rum Diary, as well as write In Dreams).  She crosses the Atlantic during the 1860s to Halifax, lying to family and friends, as she holes herself up in her rented room, conniving via correspondence both abroad and locally to land her man.  Unlike the last HMWYBS lead actress Joan Crawford in Possessed, Adjani has youth, as well as a soft milky white beauty.  She also has time (and her father's money) on her side, which makes it easier to digest her stalking.  And she is relentless in her creative ways of pulling Pinson into her life.  There isn't ANYTHING this bitch wouldn't do to get her man and, boy, does she exhaust the possibilities, even resorts to the oldest trick in the book.  She's not only running towards a man she wants to lose herself in who wants nothing to do with her, but she's running away from an identity that is both a blessing and a curse.  She seeks anonymity from familial stock that enables her to indulge her fancy.  The girl had got a disease and Adjani sells her affliction to the audience in one incredible performance.  Adèle momentarily finds respite in the kindest of a stranger who can see right into her heart and nurse her back to physical health, while observing that her soul may be irreparable.  This is a tragedy of sorts, but not in the ways one might expect.  Additionally, Truffaut makes her antics easier to stomach with a nod here and a wink there to the audience, like puppies emerging out of nowhere trailing behind Pinson and his lover ascending a stairwell, as Adele spies on them from outside.  Not so funny (or sexy) is Robinson actually kicking one of them, sending them cascading down.  And there is some beautiful irony, when Adele, of an age that is the summer of one's youth, describes her life as autumnal, only to have it snow in the next frame.   Things end with a nifty little history lesson.  

Alex Forrest never got to this point;
she probably has never been to Barbados either

Adjani's Steely Soft French Beauty

"... You deserve all the women on earth." 
(But, not when you kick puppies down stairs)

Previous HMWYBS:
Picnic
The Story of Adele H.

Possessed

Edward Scissorhands

The Exorcist

Pariah
Raise the Red Lantern

Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs

The Circus

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