rating: ****
the story: Tony Stark's afterglow from the big Iron Man reveal is threatened by a business rival.
review. I hate Iron Man. I hate the movie responsible for the whole MCU. I think that if everyone who flocked to see Avengers: Endgame this year actually bothered to rewatch (or surely in some cases, watch) it, they'd hate it, too. But we have this fiction that the MCU has done no wrong. Forget that everyone forgets Incredible Hulk is the second MCU movie, or even exists within the MCU, and you get an origin to the whole thing that makes it all the more remarkable that the MCU happened at all. What saved Iron Man was the fortuitous casting and performance of Robert Downey Jr., and Iron Man 2.
Now, conventional wisdom is that it's actually Iron Man 2 that sucks. Which is nonsense. Iron Man 2 is the reason the MCU happened. And it's the reason why anyone thinks the MCU has been so good. It's the real template. And it did it better than just about all of the subsequent movies.
Tony Stark is given a real arc. A real arc. This is the only movie, in all his appearances, where he is given a real arc. And a satisfying one, at that. He seems like a real character. The charm of the performance matches, for the first time, the charm of the character. And built all around it is an incredible assembly, the first great assemblage of characters in the MCU. This is Scarlett Johansson's first appearance as Black Widow. Arguably it's her best appearance as Black Widow. Samuel L. Jackson has his first decent-sized appearance as Nick Fury. Don Cheadle assumes the role of Jim Rhodes. Garry Shandling is a smarmy senator trying to match wits with Tony Stark. Gwyneth Paltrow does more of her Pepper Potts (which is basically the same in every appearance). Director Jon Favreau, in his second and final film at the helm in the MCU, puts in another appearance as Happy Hogan (inexplicably his most enduring contribution to the whole thing). Mickey Rourke throws away his Hollywood comebackto play Whiplash, with a wicked Russian accent. Clark Gregg puts in an Agent Coulson appearance. And...ladies and gentlemen: Sam Rockwell.
Sam Rockwell's whole career is unfathomable. How does he keep finding roles? You'd think after The Green Mile he would've been dismissed into an endless stream of tiny creep roles. But he just keeps finding decent roles, decent-sized roles. And you can thank appearances like his Justin Hammer for it. He utterly lampoons the Tony Stark of Iron Man in this one. He lampoons the Tony Stark of Iron Man 2 in this one. And somehow we never see the dude again. Absolutely indispensable magic. But at least they realized instantly how important Loki was (the best thing about Thor by far).
So the whole package is pretty wonderful. And quite possibly still the best single thing about the whole MCU.
Saturday, August 24, 2019
The Great Gatsby (2013)
rating: ***
the story: Nick Carraway becomes swept up in the epic life of Jay Gatsby.
review: Leonardo DiCaprio has frequently been a brilliant actor. Not always. And it's always strange to discover the exceptions. The Great Gatsby is one of them.
Baz Luhrmann does the Moulin Rouge version of the F. Scott Fitzgerald classic, and Spider-Man, I mean Tobey Maguire, is our host. Maguire's casting, and performance, in the film is one of the textbook examples of failing to escape a well-known role. Maguire had a career as someone other than Spider-Man, before he put on the spandex, but then he did and now, because he's an actor of limited range, it's going to be hard to see him as anything but Spider-Man. And I find it difficult to believe that Lurhmann didn't on some level comprehend that. Maguire has voiceover work in his Spider-Man movies, too, so it's even harder to understand. He plays Carraway as the same Peter Parker dork persona, and Luhrmann dresses him as the same Peter Parker dork persona.
And then in strolls DiCaprio, and by now it's clear that he's developed a worn-in face, but the voice, if he isn't careful, is that of a child actor who...just has a career that's inexplicably continued. And that's Leo DiCaprio if he hasn't bothered to sculpt a performance. And that's his Gatsby. Anytime he opens his mouth, it's just Jack from Titanic in an alternate reality. Which I suppose was half the point of casting DiCaprio in the role.
Carey Mulligan is Daisy Buchanan. Mulligan was the It Girl at the time, but displays little reason for being It in the role. Isla Fisher has a thankless tiny supporting role (as she tends to have), and Jason Clarke is in it, too.
The real reason, the only reason to watch this version of The Great Gatsby is Joel Edgerton's Tom Buchanan, is Joel Edgerton. Following his Hollywood breakthrough performance in Warrior (2011), The Great Gatsby was Edgerton's first real chance to shine, and he obviously threw himself at the opportunity. His even better performance in Exodus: Gods and Kings (2014), I suspect, has something to do with this one. Edgerton's somewhat blank face has always been his biggest drawback, but his voice and his sheer acting talent, when he's been allowed to shine, are undeniably huge assets. He clearly seized this opportunity. He's the only one in the movie who simultaneously loses himself in the time period and dominates the screen every time he appears. Some would call it overacting, or simply dismiss him as a ham. Those I would call clueless idiots. In another era, he would've instantly become a huge star. In this one he's settled back into a fairly anonymous career in the years since.
So the Jay Gatsby of this version? Is its Tom Buchanan.
the story: Nick Carraway becomes swept up in the epic life of Jay Gatsby.
review: Leonardo DiCaprio has frequently been a brilliant actor. Not always. And it's always strange to discover the exceptions. The Great Gatsby is one of them.
Baz Luhrmann does the Moulin Rouge version of the F. Scott Fitzgerald classic, and Spider-Man, I mean Tobey Maguire, is our host. Maguire's casting, and performance, in the film is one of the textbook examples of failing to escape a well-known role. Maguire had a career as someone other than Spider-Man, before he put on the spandex, but then he did and now, because he's an actor of limited range, it's going to be hard to see him as anything but Spider-Man. And I find it difficult to believe that Lurhmann didn't on some level comprehend that. Maguire has voiceover work in his Spider-Man movies, too, so it's even harder to understand. He plays Carraway as the same Peter Parker dork persona, and Luhrmann dresses him as the same Peter Parker dork persona.
And then in strolls DiCaprio, and by now it's clear that he's developed a worn-in face, but the voice, if he isn't careful, is that of a child actor who...just has a career that's inexplicably continued. And that's Leo DiCaprio if he hasn't bothered to sculpt a performance. And that's his Gatsby. Anytime he opens his mouth, it's just Jack from Titanic in an alternate reality. Which I suppose was half the point of casting DiCaprio in the role.
Carey Mulligan is Daisy Buchanan. Mulligan was the It Girl at the time, but displays little reason for being It in the role. Isla Fisher has a thankless tiny supporting role (as she tends to have), and Jason Clarke is in it, too.
The real reason, the only reason to watch this version of The Great Gatsby is Joel Edgerton's Tom Buchanan, is Joel Edgerton. Following his Hollywood breakthrough performance in Warrior (2011), The Great Gatsby was Edgerton's first real chance to shine, and he obviously threw himself at the opportunity. His even better performance in Exodus: Gods and Kings (2014), I suspect, has something to do with this one. Edgerton's somewhat blank face has always been his biggest drawback, but his voice and his sheer acting talent, when he's been allowed to shine, are undeniably huge assets. He clearly seized this opportunity. He's the only one in the movie who simultaneously loses himself in the time period and dominates the screen every time he appears. Some would call it overacting, or simply dismiss him as a ham. Those I would call clueless idiots. In another era, he would've instantly become a huge star. In this one he's settled back into a fairly anonymous career in the years since.
So the Jay Gatsby of this version? Is its Tom Buchanan.
Cinderella Man (2005)
rating: ****
the story: The Great Depression is almost Jim Braddock's greatest opponent.
review: Boxing is such a familiar movie premise at this point it can be easy to take for granted, but there's a reason it's used so much, because it's inherently cinematic. It's almost better to watch boxing in the movies than any other way. Cinderella Man, in turn, dramatizes one of the great boxing stories, a comeback tale that dwarfs the later fictional Rocky Balboa saga.
It's also a Russell Crowe vehicle. It seems as if Hollywood (and/or the press) periodically chews up and spits out its stars, finding whatever pretense it can (there always seems to be one), and this was just about the point where Crowe's remarkable Oscars streak (starring in back-to-back Best Picture winners, Gladiator and A Beautiful Mind) had reached its sell-by date, right when he seemed to have found another surefire winner. But the system was done with him, and that's all you really needed to know about Cinderella Man. Right?
Crowe has been chasing Brando his whole career, by his own admission. Before he became a known acting commodity, Crowe was acting singing (yeah! he sang before he acted) "I Just Wanna Be Like Marlon Brando." Brando's early defining role was washed-up boxer Terry Malloy ("I coulda been a contenda!"). It's not hard to imagine Crowe envisioning himself playing Malloy, after a fashion, and the audience finally getting to see the guy actually box. And of course, because it's based on a real story, Malloy getting to hold his head high for an entirely different reason, at the end of the movie.
Cinderella Man is in some ways the end of the old Hollywood, before blockbusters finally squeezed out the traditional drama in the popular imagination. The Oscars, ironically, no longer have time for movies like it, even though their whole stereotype is built on it. But Cinderella Man isn't just the stereotype. As I say at the beginning of the review, it's about the boxing itself, how well it translates to film, and about perhaps the greatest boxing story ever.
Crowe's only real support in all this is Paul Giamatti, in a role that catches him at the exact moment he was attempting to finally transition into a leading man, thanks to the one-two punch (pop! pop!) of American Splendor and Sideways that helped studios and audiences finally discover his unique appeal. His role in Cinderalla Man expands as the movie continues, but it's still clearly a supporting one. There's also Renee Zellweger, who was in the midst of her own career transition, downward, having once been a Hollywood darling. Her role shrinks in the movie as it goes along, naturally. Director Ron Howard, of course, who helmed Crowe previously in A Beautiful Mind, was afterward best known for his Robert Langdon adaptations, and never again, like Crowe, embraced by the Oscar set.
Crowe never did get to make movies like this again. His subsequent career has been marked with reinvention. So perhaps different for the better. Cinderella Man is a neat little swan song for all involved.
the story: The Great Depression is almost Jim Braddock's greatest opponent.
review: Boxing is such a familiar movie premise at this point it can be easy to take for granted, but there's a reason it's used so much, because it's inherently cinematic. It's almost better to watch boxing in the movies than any other way. Cinderella Man, in turn, dramatizes one of the great boxing stories, a comeback tale that dwarfs the later fictional Rocky Balboa saga.
It's also a Russell Crowe vehicle. It seems as if Hollywood (and/or the press) periodically chews up and spits out its stars, finding whatever pretense it can (there always seems to be one), and this was just about the point where Crowe's remarkable Oscars streak (starring in back-to-back Best Picture winners, Gladiator and A Beautiful Mind) had reached its sell-by date, right when he seemed to have found another surefire winner. But the system was done with him, and that's all you really needed to know about Cinderella Man. Right?
Crowe has been chasing Brando his whole career, by his own admission. Before he became a known acting commodity, Crowe was acting singing (yeah! he sang before he acted) "I Just Wanna Be Like Marlon Brando." Brando's early defining role was washed-up boxer Terry Malloy ("I coulda been a contenda!"). It's not hard to imagine Crowe envisioning himself playing Malloy, after a fashion, and the audience finally getting to see the guy actually box. And of course, because it's based on a real story, Malloy getting to hold his head high for an entirely different reason, at the end of the movie.
Cinderella Man is in some ways the end of the old Hollywood, before blockbusters finally squeezed out the traditional drama in the popular imagination. The Oscars, ironically, no longer have time for movies like it, even though their whole stereotype is built on it. But Cinderella Man isn't just the stereotype. As I say at the beginning of the review, it's about the boxing itself, how well it translates to film, and about perhaps the greatest boxing story ever.
Crowe's only real support in all this is Paul Giamatti, in a role that catches him at the exact moment he was attempting to finally transition into a leading man, thanks to the one-two punch (pop! pop!) of American Splendor and Sideways that helped studios and audiences finally discover his unique appeal. His role in Cinderalla Man expands as the movie continues, but it's still clearly a supporting one. There's also Renee Zellweger, who was in the midst of her own career transition, downward, having once been a Hollywood darling. Her role shrinks in the movie as it goes along, naturally. Director Ron Howard, of course, who helmed Crowe previously in A Beautiful Mind, was afterward best known for his Robert Langdon adaptations, and never again, like Crowe, embraced by the Oscar set.
Crowe never did get to make movies like this again. His subsequent career has been marked with reinvention. So perhaps different for the better. Cinderella Man is a neat little swan song for all involved.
Saturday, August 10, 2019
Once Upon A Time In Hollywood (2019)
rating: ****
the story: A former TV star's bid for career resurrection intertwines with the life of Sharon Tate.
review: A week after seeing it I'm still processing Once Upon A Time In Hollywood. Sometimes I'm instantly in love with a Quentin Tarantino film (Inglourious Basterds, Django Unchained), other times I'm not sure how devoted I'll be (Jackie Brown, Hateful Eight, even Pulp Fiction and Reservoir Dogs). The two-volume Kill Bill is sort of in-between, although the second one is closer to instant love.
But of all his movies, Once Upon...is probably closest to Jackie Brown, which was Tarantino's first taste of languid, of just letting his filmmaking speak for itself rather than splashy violence (Reservoir Dogs) or splashy stars (Pulp Fiction) do the talking (along with the characters, naturally). Once Upon takes its tone from Margot Robbie's Sharon Tate, who today is best known for being horribly murdered at the behest of Charles Manson. Tarantino has stated that he wanted Tate to exist apart from that narrative. In fact, Once Upon... becomes his second film, after Inglourious Basterds, to deliberately rewrite history, in allowing Tate to avoid her fate, and it's in that regard that the film reaches its highest note and possibly the note on which the entire movie will ultimately be judged.
But Robbie's Tate isn't really the star of the movie. That honor falls to Leonardo DiCaprio, who's featured as the former TV star, a fictional character, who has been struggling to find meaningful roles. His TV show was a western, and by the time we catch up with him he's being cast in his latest guest spot in another one, and as Tarantino presents it the material becomes a movie-within-a-movie, something I wish he'd done with Django Unchained (as a flashback-of-sorts for the Brunhilda myth), which for some viewers might be a needless tangent, but it helps put the character in context, how he views himself, and thus how everything would turn out for all the characters if we followed their narratives equally. Metaphorically, you understand.
Just below DiCaprio is Brad Pitt playing his former stunt double, now personal assistant. After, oh, about a decade of sliding toward irrelevance and being best known for his relationship with Angelina Jolie, Pitt's performance in Once Upon... is almost akin to Travolta in Pulp Fiction, a giant reminder of his considerable talents, the full impact of his charismatic screen presence. He's got the best scene, too, a fight with Bruce Lee that becomes better as it builds, which is interesting for Tarantino, who usually accomplishes the bulk of his work with words. It's another subtle evolution of his filmmaking mastery.
Among the supporting players are Al Pacino (allowing himself a rare character role), Bruce Dern, and Kurt Russell, who's probably in the best sweet spot of his career (previewed, in some ways, by Death Proof, with a great spotlight in Hateful Eight).
But the ending is the real selling point. As I said, Tarantino allows Sharon Tate to cheat fate. In doing so, he probably allows Tate's husband, at the time of her death, Roman Polanski a reboot as well. Polanski at one time was known simply as a brilliant director. He was just coming off his breakthrough film, Rosemary's Baby, at the time, and would later direct Chinatown and The Pianist, but his career was forever tarnished by a rape charge he chose exile from America to avoid prosecution over. Is it reasonable to assume Tate's death played a role in the sequence of events that led to this fate? Is Tarantino saving two lives here? That's how I choose to view it, anyway.
Giving Tate the focus, rather than Charles Manson, is itself a noteworthy choice on Tarantino's part. It takes the power away from Manson, who entered virtual cultural immortality as the result of ordering Tate's murder, and Tate herself became just a name. In effect, Tarantino is addressing two major sins, and offering a chance at correction, that've haunted Hollywood for fifty years, which is noteworthy in and of itself at a time when Hollywood has been playing a moral authority. Is it a direct criticism? Will Hollywood even care, come the Oscars next year, or merely be flattered, as it tends to be, when presented as subject matter? If it gives Tarantino his long-deserved Academy recognition, all the better.
Perhaps, in time, I'll better understand how much I appreciate this one. For now I'll be a little cautious. But like all Tarantino's movies, it won't be easy to forget. Not by a long shot. Yeah....
the story: A former TV star's bid for career resurrection intertwines with the life of Sharon Tate.
review: A week after seeing it I'm still processing Once Upon A Time In Hollywood. Sometimes I'm instantly in love with a Quentin Tarantino film (Inglourious Basterds, Django Unchained), other times I'm not sure how devoted I'll be (Jackie Brown, Hateful Eight, even Pulp Fiction and Reservoir Dogs). The two-volume Kill Bill is sort of in-between, although the second one is closer to instant love.
But of all his movies, Once Upon...is probably closest to Jackie Brown, which was Tarantino's first taste of languid, of just letting his filmmaking speak for itself rather than splashy violence (Reservoir Dogs) or splashy stars (Pulp Fiction) do the talking (along with the characters, naturally). Once Upon takes its tone from Margot Robbie's Sharon Tate, who today is best known for being horribly murdered at the behest of Charles Manson. Tarantino has stated that he wanted Tate to exist apart from that narrative. In fact, Once Upon... becomes his second film, after Inglourious Basterds, to deliberately rewrite history, in allowing Tate to avoid her fate, and it's in that regard that the film reaches its highest note and possibly the note on which the entire movie will ultimately be judged.
But Robbie's Tate isn't really the star of the movie. That honor falls to Leonardo DiCaprio, who's featured as the former TV star, a fictional character, who has been struggling to find meaningful roles. His TV show was a western, and by the time we catch up with him he's being cast in his latest guest spot in another one, and as Tarantino presents it the material becomes a movie-within-a-movie, something I wish he'd done with Django Unchained (as a flashback-of-sorts for the Brunhilda myth), which for some viewers might be a needless tangent, but it helps put the character in context, how he views himself, and thus how everything would turn out for all the characters if we followed their narratives equally. Metaphorically, you understand.
Just below DiCaprio is Brad Pitt playing his former stunt double, now personal assistant. After, oh, about a decade of sliding toward irrelevance and being best known for his relationship with Angelina Jolie, Pitt's performance in Once Upon... is almost akin to Travolta in Pulp Fiction, a giant reminder of his considerable talents, the full impact of his charismatic screen presence. He's got the best scene, too, a fight with Bruce Lee that becomes better as it builds, which is interesting for Tarantino, who usually accomplishes the bulk of his work with words. It's another subtle evolution of his filmmaking mastery.
Among the supporting players are Al Pacino (allowing himself a rare character role), Bruce Dern, and Kurt Russell, who's probably in the best sweet spot of his career (previewed, in some ways, by Death Proof, with a great spotlight in Hateful Eight).
But the ending is the real selling point. As I said, Tarantino allows Sharon Tate to cheat fate. In doing so, he probably allows Tate's husband, at the time of her death, Roman Polanski a reboot as well. Polanski at one time was known simply as a brilliant director. He was just coming off his breakthrough film, Rosemary's Baby, at the time, and would later direct Chinatown and The Pianist, but his career was forever tarnished by a rape charge he chose exile from America to avoid prosecution over. Is it reasonable to assume Tate's death played a role in the sequence of events that led to this fate? Is Tarantino saving two lives here? That's how I choose to view it, anyway.
Giving Tate the focus, rather than Charles Manson, is itself a noteworthy choice on Tarantino's part. It takes the power away from Manson, who entered virtual cultural immortality as the result of ordering Tate's murder, and Tate herself became just a name. In effect, Tarantino is addressing two major sins, and offering a chance at correction, that've haunted Hollywood for fifty years, which is noteworthy in and of itself at a time when Hollywood has been playing a moral authority. Is it a direct criticism? Will Hollywood even care, come the Oscars next year, or merely be flattered, as it tends to be, when presented as subject matter? If it gives Tarantino his long-deserved Academy recognition, all the better.
Perhaps, in time, I'll better understand how much I appreciate this one. For now I'll be a little cautious. But like all Tarantino's movies, it won't be easy to forget. Not by a long shot. Yeah....
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