A Celluloid Story
September 30, 2015
Life (2015).
D: Anton Corbijn. DP: Charlotte Bruus Christensen. W: Luke Davis. Starring: Dane DeHaan/Robert Pattinson/Ben Kinsgley/Joel Edgerton/Kristian Bruun/Alessandra Mastronardi.
As the leaves begin to change, fall is upon us and once again its time to get through the slog of films and gear up for another award season. Life has made it over here in the UK before its December release in the US, but this will hardly help its appeal back home.
Similar to recent films My Week With Marilyn or Hitchcock, Life is what I would term a chapter biopic. Rather than attempting to chronicle a subject from birth to death, the chapter biopic picks a specific moment in time. More importantly, the chapter biopic routinely involves an outsider’s interactions with the biopic subject. In a sense the film is as much about who this subject was to the lay person, their sparkle briefly entering someone else’s orbit.
Life follows freelance photographer Dennis Stock (Robert Pattinson) who feels trapped in LA shooting red carpets and movie stills. He meets a pre-Rebel Without a Cause James Dean (Dane DeHaan) and the two begin a weird love/hate friendship. Dennis is persistent about shooting a spread for Life magazine of Dean who continuously evades the idea only to give into Stock once they’ve returned to New York City. Of course, this all leads to the creation of the famous Life spread of Dean back home in Indiana, his last visit before his death at twenty-four.
The majority of audiences will know the spread or of Dean’s death leaving little surprises to be had here. So the film must rely entirely on its leads chemistry and their performances. Pattinson continues to look uncomfortable on screen, pulling his jaw and posing like his Twilight days. His performance is inconsistent, he hardly seems to want to make eye contact with his fellow actors. DeHaan, who is one of my favorite young actors, plays Dean like the weird maverick he was. He cannot hide behind a wide smile and looks like James Franco so rather his Dean is a Marlon Brando sounding slightly brawny poet. DeHaan does a good job building a character and considering Dean’s death was sixty years ago and he only made three films the impression of who he is really the only surviving element. His image as iconography has eclipsed his talent or memory.
Ultimately, Life cannot sustain interest in its subject as it relies on shadows of an actor long gone, shadows that are better represented in the famous photographs than in cinema. The film is not able to create any real buildup to Indiana and stalls out multiple times. The personal signification of the photographs falls flat as it is left to a end card. Anton Corbijn’s previous film, Control, is far superior in composition, energy, and performance. There simply is not enough here for Life to sink its teeth into.
Hopelessly (and Nauseatingly) Devoted to Forever
November 19, 2012
Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn – Part 2 (2012)
D: Bill Condon. W: Melissa Rosenberg. DP: Guillermo Navarro. Starring: Kristen Stewart/Robert Pattinson/Taylor Lautner/Peter Facinelli/Billy Burke/Ashley Greene/Nikki Reed/Dakota Fanning/Michael Sheen/Maggie Grace/Jackson Rathbone/Kellan Lutz/Mackenzie Foy/Jamie Campbell Bower/Elizabeth Reaser/Lee Pace/Joe Anderson/Noel Fisher/JD Pardo. (NOTE: Based on Stephanie Meyer’s young adult fiction book of the same name.)
Four books and five films later the Twilight Saga came to an official end over the weekend. I began this blog more than three and a half years ago and the first review I did was on Twilight. So this not only feels like cinematic closure, but it also means I finally never have to write about soporific vampire love ever again. Or at least not until the series is ceremoniously rebooted, which hopefully won’t be in my lifetime. We can all dream!
Breaking Dawn – Part 2 picks up where its disastrous predecessor, Breaking Dawn – Part 1, left off. Kristen Stewart’s Bella has not only given birth to her half human, half vampire daughter, but has survived the birth by being turned into a vampire herself. Sporting crazy contacts, fake lashes, and even more fake hair Stewart strides into her new life with immense restraint and a humorous first scene with Taylor Lautner’s Jake. Both in the books and films, the werewolf ‘imprinting’ is the silliest and least believable element to the wolf lore. This concept reaches levels of embarrassment as Lautner has to painfully admit to Stewart and Pattinson that he has ‘imprinted’ on their infant daughter. Awkward.
Even more silly was Stewart and Pattinson notorious “first night” together as vampires. Like something out of a CW fairy tale, the montage is so honey coated it practically oozes off the screen. Somewhere, someplace, my 14 year old self is mighty thankful that her vampire story growing up was Joss Whedon’s Buffy the Vampire Slayer. At least that character kicked some ass and didn’t feed ridiculous notions of candlelit sex to teens. I digress.
Much like Eclipse, this installment enlarges the vampire world and has the Cullen family out recruiting other vampires to join their stance against the Volturi. These journeys feel laboriously slow as Stewart’s voice-over is used as a crutch to transition all these various scenes and locations. In the very first Twilight, Stewart’s voice-over was deliberate and diegetically made sense as she was a character in new surroundings and very much alone. But now so much further in her relationship and part of a team effort to protect her unfortunately named daughter (Renesmee???) the voice-over falls flat. The special effects on Renesmee don’t help either.
However, what ultimately saves the film is this vampire community. Unlike the caped and archaic Volturi, this group of misfits has life and energy. The new actors seem to help breathe life into the boring Cullen clan and director Bill Condon seems more at ease with his pacing with these new elements. Most memorable is talented Lee Pace as rogue vamp-dude Garrett, Joe Anderson’s English loner Alistair and Noel Fisher’s Transylvanian Vladimir. They all seem to be having an immense amount of fun, as does Michael Sheen whose Aro laugh is pure unadulterated glee. Filmed back to back with the last film, this installment also sports the best opening and ending credits of the series.
Thankfully, the werewolves are less important in Breaking Dawn – Part 2 as they were one of the pitfalls of the last film. However, Lautner’s Jacob’s break from his pack to form his own is completely abandoned in the film. Not a heartbreak, but still it could have been tackled in one scene and allowed Lautner’s decisions and imprinting to have clear consequences. That being said the acting is all about the same level here as it has been in the rest of the film so maybe consequences really wouldn’t make a difference. What did was screenwriter Melissa Rosenberg’s trick story element at the climax of the film that allows action that never happens in the book to be seen visually. This trick saves Breaking Dawn – Part 2 from the anti-climactic ending of the novel.
Ultimately, the best film and novel out of the bunch was New Moon. Brimming with teenage idealism and the destruction it causes, the film and book have the most memorable moments out of the whole saga. And a saga it is. For all those who camped out to feed their obsession, clapped and yelped in the theaters, this must be a sad weekend indeed. For the rest of us, phew, no more teenage sparkle vampire drama for awhile. Cheers to that.
An Odyssey of Nothing
September 5, 2012
Cosmopolis (2012).
D/W: David Cronenberg. DP: Peter Suschitzky. Starring: Robert Pattinson/Kevin Durand/Juliette Binoche/Jay Burachel/Sarah Gadon/Samantha Morton/Paul Giamatti. (Based on the novel by Don DeLillo)
At first, I might have admitted I was peeved at myself for not having read Don DeLillo’s novel, Cosmopolis. However, after sitting through nearly two hours of footage summarizing a day in the life of a pretty playboy in a limo, no peeving happening here. I originally mused…I am sure the novel is better and there is a story on the page. After that, I’m not so sure. Now I am sure, I just don’t care.
Replacing Colin Farrell who dropped out to do that little remake of a movie called Total Recall, Robert Pattinson got a big role put right in his lap. Yet as noted in Water for Elephants and the Twilight series, he fumbles with what he’s given. Confined to a limo as a rolling office for the majority of the film, Pattinson plays Eric Packer, a 20 something money making misogynist who fucks around all day. Sleek and stiff as usual, Pattinson does little to give his character charisma other than his gadgets and gizmos. He seems to be in a stupor most of the time and unfortunately, David Cronenberg’s script is also to be blamed.
The last Cronenberg film was 2011’s A Dangerous Method. Lush, complex and brimming with dialogue, that film had such life to it. Cosmopolis is it’s unwanted Cinderella step child that is actually stuffed up the chimney rather than degraded to cleaning it. Cronenberg’s script is very word heavy and with some doozey lines that actually detract and pull you out of the limo version of Manhattan. For a story so bent on obsessing about the lack of substance money buys, the disconnection of urban life, and luxurious boredom, the film never went beyond just that. Boredom.
A hardy few claps must be given to Kevin Durand as Pattinson’s chief of security. He spends most of the film crouching down into the limo and apparently could keep a straight face while doing it repeatedly. Both Juliette Binoche and Samantha Morton make brief and forgettable appearances, which is much more disappointing for them then anyone will admit. But what is even more embarrassing is Paul Giamatti’s raging scenes towards the end. My only hope is that so few people see this film that no one else will have the scars from that last twenty minutes. You have been warned.
The Forever Story that Finally Lost its Footing
November 22, 2011
The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn – Part 1 (2011).
D: Bill Condon. DP: Guillermo Navarro. W: Melissa Rosenberg. Starring: Kristen Stewart/Robert Pattinson/Taylor Lautner/Ashley Greene/Nikki Reed/Kellan Lutz/Elizabeth Reaser/Peter Facinelli/Billy Burke/Jackson Rathbone/Sarah Clarke/Anna Kendrick/Booboo Stewart/Julia Jones/Maggie Grace/Chaske Spencer. (NOTE: Based on Stephanie Meyer’s young adult fiction book of the same name).
Once again, twi-hards from near and far gathered and camped out for this this year’s release of The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn – Part 1. This is the fourth film, but first part of the conclusion of the star-crossed romance of the human Bella and vampire Edward. And for those of you who have no idea what Twilight is about, I envy you for missing out on this one.
This latest installment jumps right into the wedding day for Kristen Stewart’s Bella and Robert Pattinson’s Edward. This wedding is symbolic as it not only will act as a catalyst to allow the couple’s relationship to evolve out of its chaste state, but represents Stewart’s Bella’s commitment to eventually becoming a vampire like Pattinson’s Edward. But let’s be honest, this symbolism is pretty overt. Almost as absurdly obvious is the shot of author Stephanie Meyer as Stewart walks down the aisle, look for it twi-maniacs. Regardless, unfortunately, the wedding scene (though a beautiful venue) falls rather flat. The chemistry between the other actors seems dishearteningly unapparent with the only memorable moment being when the camera sweeps around the room during the couples wedding ceremony kiss. Revealing that no one is there, and the kiss must make them feel like they are in a world of their own. That remains the only sparkle of true romance for awhile in the film.
Once the couple goes off on their honeymoon, director Bill Condon (2006’s Dreamgirls, 2004’s Kinsey, 1998’s Gods and Monsters) shows his true faults in attempting this project. Almost immediately, every scene is filled with soundtrack fodder. As if the story isn’t simple enough to follow, we now must have a song for every scene to gauge the characters emotions. So much so that by the time the much anticipated sex scene happens you’re over it and the rest of the montages are just laughable. There is also no hope for acting chops to be created for the leads, we’re too deep now. And it is glaringly clear in the first hour of the film that Condon did not know how to tackle such a piece of slow moving story with not much depth or levels besides romance. But can we fault him? Hold on, it gets worse.
Unfortunately for this industry and audience members who had not read the books, the actual twist in the film was revealed during the huge marketing campaign for Breaking Dawn – Part 1. Stewart’s pregnancy revelation on her honeymoon not only changes the course of the story, but of her character. However, with everyone and their grandmothers having known this was coming from the trailers (thus the element of visual surprise is gone) it completely falls flat. The second half of the film has a much different tone to it, but all sense of suspense is still lost. Kudos must be given to the make-up and special effects departments for destroying Stewart’s body so well on screen during the pregnancy. The birthing scenes are logically a mess, but they have their moments of glittering intensity and Pattinson is able to lose his shell for a few scenes. But the rest of the film is agonizingly slow, builds up to the silliest of battles (because the real battle has been saved for the next film) and even sports a power rangers type pow wow of the wolf-clan. Try not to laugh at that one, I dare you.
Without a doubt, this is the most disappointing film (so far) in the franchise. Not only was the audience laughing at it (myself included), but the film felt so disjointed and overdone that it seemed to be taking the mickey out of itself. A director like Bill Condon might have actually hurt the project. His ambition to stylize the film is admirable, but is lost amidst such a slow story. Stephanie Meyer’s final book should not have have been split into two as there is simply not enough substance to warrant it. I actually went home craving Twilight, New Moon, and Eclipse. And that is saying something.
10 Spring Must Reads for Moviegoers
March 3, 2011
1. Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen. Out in April, this adaptation will star Robert Pattinson and Reese Witherspoon. Hoping that it will be both better than the Twilight series for Pattinson and better than the 2004′s Vanity Fair adaptation Witherspoon was in, we can all breathe a bit easier knowing how well put together the book is. Also, there is an actual reason to have an elephant in this one.
2. Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte. Really is this necessary? I don’t care how prolific it wants to be, lets put it to rest. Just like Austen. Let’s have a generation that learns the book before the film. Still mad at Jamie Bell.
3. Atlas Shrugged (Part 1) by Ayn Rand. Set for an April 15th release. Such a massive undertaking with a somewhat unknown director. Still on my to read list, but safe to say itll be a slog as they are cutting the book into more than one film.
4. Harry Potter & The Deathly Hallows Part II by J.K. Rowling. In theaters this summer. No argument needed. If you haven’t read any, you have a couple of months before the first part of the final chapter comes out. Get on it. Now.
5. Mr. Popper’s Penguins by Roald Dahl. June 17. If you didn’t read this as a child, you truly missed out. I don’t know how I feel about the story changes and the casting of Jim Carrey, but the only way to know is to see it.
6. One Day by David Nicholls. Set for a July release, this film stars Anne Hathaway and Jim Sturgess as former college sweethearts who visit each other every year to see where they are in their lives. On my to read list. But shot in London, Edinburgh and Paris…hmmm.
7. Snow Flower & The Secret Fan by Lisa See. July 2011. Also still on my to read list. Hugh Jackman stars in a story set in 19th century China and centered on the lifelong friendship between two girls who develop their own secret code as a way to contend with the rigid cultural norms imposed on women.
8. The Help by Kathryn Stocket. Set for an August 2011 release starring Easy A‘s Emma Stone, who can also be seen in the next Spiderman film.
9. On the Road by Jack Kerouac. In post production.
10. The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson. David Fincher is directing the first American-Hollywood version of this series starring Rooney Mara of Social Network craziness.
The Twilight Saga: Eclipse (2010).
D: David Slade. DP: Javier Aguirresarobe. W: Melissa Rosenberg. Starring: Kristen Stewart/Robert Pattinson/Taylor Lautner/Billy Burke/Peter Facinelli/Ashley Greene/Nikki Reed/Kellan Lutz/Jackson Rathbone/Elizabeth Reaser/Bryce Dallas Howard/Dakota Fanning. (NOTE: Based on Stephanie Meyer’s young adult fiction book of the same name).
The most anticipated release of summer 2010 is here! But whether you were able to camp out for the premiere here in LA or back home at your local theater, twi-hard fever has been dually felt and noted. But it was only back in November that audiences crowded the theaters to see The Twilight Saga: New Moon the sequel to 2008’s successful Twilight. Are you ready for another?
Eclipse picks up right where the last film left off with the most important trio of main actors returning to their roles. Wearing a somewhat obvious wig the whole time, Kristen Stewart manages to keep her Bella simple and eager to learn about the possibility of her new life. As in the last films, Stewart’s own shyness and awkwardness serve her well here. Her chemistry with Robert Pattinson’s Edward is palpable, surely aided a bit by their own off screen romance (or so one would think). With every film we see a better Pattinson acting wise, but his take on Edward may consistently disappoint. Although intense and statuesque, Pattinson still lacks the weight and movement of someone whose over a century old, something I noted in Twilight. Also, his lack of physicality or visual signs of strength has allowed Taylor Lautner’s Jacob to rule over him in the physical and protection of Bella department. An area that has been incredibly hyped up, a love triangle that is present yet not as central to the books as Bella’s type of feelings towards Jacob are more readily known. The story doesn’t hurt because of this emphasis, but sadly has made Lautner’s Jacob seem a little one note and his performance rather too all over the place despite his younger age.
And of course, thankfully, Eclipse is not all about this romance triangle. The best part of the book and now the film is the presence of back stories. Finally audiences, and Bella, get to hear more about where each Cullen has come from, an origin that has shaped their vampire life. This deepens the chemistry and mood of the group scenes and will definitely be a factor in the developing last two films of Breaking Dawn. Jackson Rathbone’s Jasper and Ashley Greene’s Alice are still winning as the young acting standouts of the franchise. Their portrayals feel researched and organic, something some of the cast is unable to tap into (maybe due to the vampire twist?). Billy Burke not included in this as his role as Bella’s father Charlie is still the best casting in the entire franchise. Unfortunately, this film doesn’t have the time to develop the wolf pack or really give audiences perspective into Jacob’s life, something maybe they are saving for the next film?
It must be noted that each film has sported a different director. But these last two used the same director of photography and, of course, used the same screenwriter throughout the series. Rosenberg must be applauded for being able to scrape off all the tangential extras that exist in Meyer’s novels. Similar to Harry Potter films in this way, this franchise has experienced a lot of creative change. However, although different, each film maintains a certain level of continuity and look that is admirable. Specifically both New Moon and Eclipse have embraced the darker, gritter elements of the story that provide excellent contrast to the intense romance of the Bella and Edward story.
On the same vein, it must be recognized that the ‘villain’ of this film is played by a different actress. In both Twilight and New Moon Rachelle Lefevre played the role of Victoria, a red-headed and hot headed vampire with a vendetta against Edward after her own vampire partner, James, was killed. Lefevre rounded out Victoria with a great sense of play, wicked enjoyment and power. Due to scheduling conflicts, as Eclipse was shot right after New Moon was wrapped, Lefevre was ceremoniously fired. A sadness for the franchise as Summit chose this route over working things out (which they obviously did for Anna Kedrick to appear in Up in the Air while also playing Jessica in both films). A sadness because Lefevre’s replacement, Bryce Dallas Howard, plays Victoria with a denseness and gives a one-dimensional performance to a character who is so enraged and grieved that her natural violence manifests itself in an army. Yet if the performance doesn’t anger you, maybe the amount of screen time will as Victoria is clearly in about half a dozen scenes, nothing that couldn’t be rescheduled.
Ultimately, the third book (and now film) will feel very transitional to most audiences. This part of the story exists to merely set up what is to come in the final installment of Breaking Dawn. This does not mean the story lacks moments of weight or interest, but overwhelming this book and film merely reiterates what occurred in New Moon and sets up the conflict of Breaking Dawn. And as the theaters fill up, money is spent, and most of the population basks in wonder and rolls their eyes at the phenomenon, just remember what you liked at that age. And be thankful that this series is all a bit chaste.