The Twinkling of Tinseltown
May 12, 2016
Knight of Cups (2016).
D/W: Terrence Malick. DP: Emmanuel Lubezki. Starring: Christian Bale/Cate Blanchett/Natalie Portman/Wes Bentley/Teresa Palmer/Freida Pinto/Brian Dennehy/Imogen Poots/Cherry Jones.
I imagine filmmaker Terrence Malick as that charming yet introverted kid in the playground. So immersed in his imaginative world he mostly plays on his own. Every now and then letting another kid break into his barriers and run to keep up with the rules of creation in his mind. Malick’s last two films 2012’s To The Wonder and 2011’s The Tree of Life were released somewhat close to one another. Having worked on Knight of Cups for a few years now as well as another upcoming project supposedly titled Weightless, the reclusive director finally brings his signature beauty to Los Angeles.
Knight of Cups meanders along with Rick (Christian Bale) as he contemplates his failed relationships, apathy, family and existence in the city of Los Angeles. Cut up into chapters the film is almost a group of novellas mostly revolving around the introduction of different women. Pixie punk darling Bella (Imogen Poots), Rick’s ex-wife Nancy (Cate Blanchett), new ‘friend’ Helen (Freida Pinto), Australian stripper Karen (Teresa Palmer), and new married lover Elizabeth (Natalie Portman) are this collection of characters that move in and out of Rick’s life. All do well, but this is not a film with acting turns. Knight of Cups is movement and space, actors as bodies within Malick’s frame.
You hardly remember Bale’s characters name as the film has voice-over from multiple characters, very little dialogue, but tremendous amounts of sound. Characters address each other through voice-over in a story like manner. This might seem dream like in description, but it is rather more like a hazy state of in-between. Bale’s Rick seems to stand in rooms and absorb–lost in trails of thought. Knight of Cups is thus not a film concerned with story or acting or conflict, but rather about being.
Here Malick works again with cinematographer Emmanuel Lubezki (The Revenant, Birdman, Gravity). There are plenty of gorgeous nature porn shots as well as souring landscapes of Los Angeles. The film is seduction in itself set in a city that circles many down the drain of money, sex, power and disastrous disengagement. Knight of Cups is more cohesive than say Tree of Life whose family melodrama felt out of sync with the scale of Malick’s concepts. Here the streamline is more focused. To say Malick is a visual storyteller is an understatement. He does not simply use images in service of a story, rather he builds the story out of images and sequences.
In other words, Knight of Cups is the visual equivalent to a Cormac McCarthy novel. Where McCarthy abandons quotation marks Malick rejects linear storytelling and standard narrative structure. The film forces you to enter into Rick’s state of mind. Like his previous work, you must bend, be patient and surrender. As a former Los Angeles resident Knight of Cups is a beautiful wander through the delusions of a high priced lifestyle sitting atop a gruesome underbelly. Most likely one will get out of the film what you bring to it. I certainty fell into Rick’s pangs, but as usual Malick is not for the non-believer.
A Cash Money Payoff
January 17, 2016
The Big Short (2016).
D: Adam McKay. DP: Barry Ackroyd. W: Charles Randolph & Adam McKay (Based on the book by Michael Lewis.) Starring: Christian Bale/Steve Carrell/Ryan Gosling/Brad Pitt/Marissa Tomei/Jeremy Strong/Hamish Linklater/Rafe Spall/Finn Wittrock/John Magaro/Max Greenfield/Billy Magnusson/Melissa Leo/Tracy Letts/Adepero Oduye.
Sandwiched between costume dramas and survival epics are a few films this award season based on large intricate real events. The Big Short is one of those and chronicles three different stories of the discovering of the housing market bubble that would lead to the financial crisis in America in 2008. A complicated system to even explain, The Big Short manages to be cynical, satirical, and directly engage its audience in understanding the bedrock of Wall Street.
Director Adam McKay, who wrote and directed both Anchorman films, received a gift from the Gods that his movie follows Martin Scorsese’s 2013 film, The Wolf of Wall Street. With the clear picture of a turned out Leonard DiCaprio in our minds as decrepit banker #85723 (number hypothetical), The Big Short can be self-aware that it is destabilizing a world just put on screen. In a delightfully silly, but helpful nod to Scorsese’s film Margot Robbie appears in a bathtub drinking champagne to explain to the audience some Wall Street jargon. These appearances of direct address to the audience are coupled with Ryan Gosling as banker Jared Vennett whose voice-over is sprinkled throughout the film. With dyed brown hair Gosling has a sickly orange glow to him and acts as a guide for the audience, a conceit that thankfully never gets overplayed.
In these ways McKay is in command of his material and plays with audience’s knowledge of the lifestyles of the rich and the famous. This includes music ques and the use of music videos to reiterate the complicity of media in the farce. Affirmations must also go to veteran female (!) editor Thelma Schoonmaker for a punchy style that isn’t overdone. In a fun twist she also edited The Wolf of Wall Street as the long standing editor for Scorsese. McKay’s vision was clearly deftly planned from the start.
McKay assembled a fine group of veterans to handle a wordy complicated script that does not ask for a tremendous emotional range. Rather Christian Bale’s Dr. Michael Burry is a subtle representation of a man whose brilliance does not necessarily compute to social skills. It is nice to see Bale in a produced down role, lacking capes and bellies galore. The center of the film however is Steve Carrell as hedge fund manger Mark Baum whose is the most emotionally conflicted character. This works because nearly everyone is so distracted with making money off of the destruction of American lives that his exhaustion and disgust plays true. Produced by Brad Pitt’s Plan B he does his duty by showing up for a part in it, making sure to remind his young protege’s of where their profits come from.
The Big Short is based on Michael Lewis’ novel inspired by these events. His books also became 2011’s Moneyball and 2009’s The Blind Side so his track record is certainly enviable. In the impending Oscar race this film is hard to compare to treacherously emotional journeys of other entries, but ultimately is a clever and investigative piece of filmmaking. The use of flickering images and cash money rap songs around sequences of characters walking through empty homes abandoned by their broke families sends chills. As I left the theater it was heard not to hear Polonius saying “neither a borrower nor a lender be” and not rush home to put my money under my mattress.
A New Malick Moment
November 25, 2015
Terrence Malick returns with a new film about the disillusionment of Hollywood starring an American accented Christian Bale. Like a Bret Easton Ellis novel, Bale falls through this trailer setting up a story that could be something different for this reclusive director of Tree of Life and others.
Knight of Cups
Where The Money Is
September 22, 2015
Just announced as the closing film of AFI Fest 2015, The Big Short is an adaptation of the Michael Lewis novel. Lewis also penned the novels of The Blind Side and Moneyball, both films which made money and received critical attention. The film stars Christian Bale, Ryan Gosling, Steve Carell, and Brad Pitt among a slew of other names. Following the bank crash in the US a few years ago, the film will be released at the end of the year. Will it be a contender?
The Big Short
A Final Bow for Batman
August 6, 2012
The Dark Knight Rises (2012).
D: Christopher Nolan. W: Jonathan Nolan & Christopher Nolan. DP: Wally Pfister. Starring: Christian Bale/Gary Oldman/Tom Hardy/Joseph Gordon-Levitt/Anne Hathaway/Marion Cotillard/Morgan Freeman/Michael Caine. (Based on the DC Comic characters created by Bob Kane.)
In all honesty it took my awhile to get to this review. I was very tense after the Aurora shooting, which I actually felt in the theater. I keep my thoughts with the victims’ families and communities. I echo Mr. Nolan’s comments, the movie theater is my home and it saddens me that someone has violated that safe space.
The Dark Knight Rises is probably the most anticipated summer release this year. Not only due to its subject matter, but also because it officially concludes Christopher Nolan’s cinematic interpretation of the Batman story. Nolan’s dominance is hard to ignore and his influence can be seen in this summer’s The Amazing Spider-Man and the upcoming summer 2013 Man of Steel, which he executive produced. But did his final installment live up to all the hype?
Where The Dark Knight Rises succeeds is mostly in mood, visuals, and giving fans a clear conclusion to the Batman’s story. Firstly, Hans Zimmer must be praised for his score. His score adds a pulse to the entire film and his Batman theme still resonates after three films. Zimmer’s work creates a base for the mood of Nolan’s Gotham, which despite the Dent act (which gives harsher sentences to criminals) is lit just as dark and gloomy as in the previous films. Yet this darkness echos Bruce Wayne’s (Christian Bale) pain, grief, and loss of identity. Bale’s decision at the end of 2008’s The Dark Knight to put away Batman has clearly robbed him of his purpose. This reclusive Wayne finally allows Bale to show Bruce’s orphaned, damaged edges that have clearly deteriorated his personal life.
Bale, for me, has easily been the best Bruce Wayne. Not only do I prefer this darker interpretation of the story, after all Bruce is just a man with expensive resources, but the films are well balanced between the two spheres of his life. Nolan allows Bale to grapple with Bruce’s need for Batman and his ultimate ignorance that he does, in fact, need his life as Bruce as well. Thankfully, Bale embraces the conflict between these two spheres and provides an intensity and depth on screen that cannot compare to previous incarnations of this character. In this film, Michael Caine steps up his game as Bale’s butler, Alfred. The scenes between them are not only poignant and moving, but act as marker’s for Bale’s journey.
Batman’s journey in this film is littered with clear visual winks at the audience and acknowledgements of Batman’s legacy. When Bale first appears donning his once abandoned suit, the music pulsates, and cinematographer, Wally Pfister, shoots his Batman in one shot. From toe to pointy ear as his cape billows behind him and he pulls up a bad guy with just one hand. Pure idealism at best, but also pure fun. Later in the film, Bale as Batman is seen, with one leg up, atop a skyscraper, surveying his city below. And ultimately, it is these visual moments that remind all of us that though Nolan’s interpretation of this comic book character are considered more realistic, he has not forgotten the origin and the thrill of the orphaned boy who becomes a city’s crusader.
However, where The Dark Knight Rises falters is in its female characters, plot anomalies, and simply put…Bane. Unfortunately for this franchise, Nolan is not adept at casting women or let alone directing them. Marion Cotillard’s Miranda comes out of nowhere to seduce Bale’s Bruce, but is giving so little to work with that she seems ancillary to the story. Rumor has it Nolan even re-worked the shooting schedule to accommodate her maternity leave, so to speak, from films. Although she was wonderful in Nolan’s 2010 Inception, this seems to much like she was left to her own devices and came up short. Where the real travesty lies is with Anne Hathaway’s Selina/Catwoman. Thankfully, she does not ruin the film. But one cannot help but begrudge Nolan for not using the character to cast someone completely new and, ahem, interesting. With Hathaway the film’s casting just seems too safe. Her Selina is clean, crisply articulate, and just far too all-American. Personally, I believe Hathaway was probably far too focused slaving away at the gym to fit into her latex suit to bother with developing a character. And at some point we have to concede that Catwoman needs to be a little bit sexy and a little bit dirty, like Bruce. And Hathaway is just not that.
As for plot anomalies there are a few. Some characters will connect Bruce Wayne and Batman rather seamlessly, others apparently take three years to put it together. For a powerful corporation, Wayne Enterprises apparently has some glaring cracks that conveniently show themselves. Yet you almost want to forgive these misgivings as it is clear that Nolan and his co-writer (his brother) had fun writing this film. The Dark Knight Rises has the most one-liners and silly goofs out of the three films. And one walking silly goof is Mr. Tom Hardy as Bane. Thundering and massively built, Hardy tries his hardest (har-har) to act his way out of his face mask. Nothing compared to Heath Ledger’s Joker (but no one will ever top that), Bane’s purpose seems far too simple and literal to mean anything. Apparently he seeks revolution and a chance to give the city back to the people in order to eliminate corruption. An apparently direct analogy to the state of this country, somehow something is lost in translation. Rather Hardy, with a hilarious sort of Sean Connery spoofed voice that is at times inaudible, does all the groundwork for a later reveal that proves he’s just as null and void as his brain.
But Nolan does not succumb to his faults. He gives us an ending. He gives us ever present and loyal Commissioner Gordon (Gary Oldman) and introduces Joseph Gordon-Levitt to more fans as Officer Blake. These strong supporting roles actually carry the film and help to balance out the moments that get out of hand and the plot holes that will leave some shaking their heads. At the end I left the theater sad the films were ending, yet smiling as Batman is forever re-incarnated on screen and like all creative things, never truly an end.
Truly a TEASER…
July 18, 2011
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