What I've Seen...
I abhorred “Babel”. I detested “Birdman”. I couldn’t even get into “Amores Perros”, but Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu has won me over with “The Revenant”; a film that possesses great beauty in its bleakness and starkness.
Based on (while embellished greatly) the true story of fur trapper Hugh Glass who was mauled by a Grizzly bear and left for dead by two colleagues who were tasked with keeping watch over him.
Along with his son Hawk (Forrest Goodluck), Hugh Glass (DiCaprio) is working as a guide and a scout to help General Andrew Henry (Domhnall Gleeson) lead his men safely on their fur trapping expedition and navigate the dangerous territory inhabited by the Arikara tribe.
When an ambush by the Arikara leaves their party decimated, Henry and the survivors must find a way to get back to their settlement without further ambush.
But when Glass suffers grievous injuries after a bear attack, Henry offers to pay men to stay behind until he dies in order to give him a proper burial. Jim Bridger (Will Poulter) and John Fitzgerald (Tom Hardy)
takes the General up on his offer. Actions by Fitzgerald spurs Glass to fight for survival as he is pitted against man and nature as he struggles to get back to the base.
The filming of the movie went over (hence Hardy dropping out of “The Suicide Squad” and dubbing the film “The Foreverandevernant”) due to the lack of much needed snow and due to the production shoot ing in natural light (a dazzling effect thanks to Emmanuel “Chivo” Lubezki’s eye)
and it’s hard to side-eye with all of this pushing the film over budget by $75 million when it pays off so exquisitely.
It’s hard to pin down what the movie is about because it’s less on plot and more about themes: endurance, greed, malice, forgiveness, empathy-and to me it’s empathy that is the prevailing theme at hand. People may be in awe of Leo as Hugh grunting and screaming and being in agony, but I was more in awe at the tenderness and caring side of the character and his relationship with his son and that love that spurs him to survive.
It’s very rare in a film that DiCaprio can show that side (the scene in “Inception” where he’s pleading with Mal to return to the hotel room was his idea and it was one of the very few emotional scenes in the film).
Samuel Jackson, Christian Bale and Sean Penn were all at one point in talks for the film (Penn for the Hardy role) and with Inarrittu at the helm I believe any one of them could have done this role, but
My 2nd time seeing it was at a screening w/ a Q*A
Tidbits from the Q&A
Mod: Asking Inarritu why he jumped into “The Revenant” so quickly after “Birdman”.
Inarritu: “I think first I didn’t know how difficult it would be. Actually, it’s funny, I started developing this project before “Birdman-five years ago. I started scouting locations six years ago; I read first draft written by Mark L. Smith and then I said, I would like to work and write with you. Then early production started five years ago and Leo and I talked in that time and we were very excited to do the film but then the financials….and he was working a long time with Scorcese “The Wolf of Wall Street” came and he had to do that and at the time the schedules didn’t work and so we had to put it on hold, that project. So then I did “Birdman” in the meanwhile and then luckily our schedules worked (later) and here I am more old, but we survived.
Mod: First meeting and conversation about doing the film.
Leo: “The Revenant” had been floating around for awhile but really, Alejandro, was the catalyst for me. We had a lot of conversations in my house at my outdoor fireplace for hours and hours and hours. I saw something in his eyes---there was a look in his eyes …that he wanted to go into the elements submerge himself deep in elements and find the poetry. This is a very straightforward, linear story. It’s a campfire legend, but there’s something existential that I think Alejandro wanted to bring to this. And it wasn’t even something he could articulate but I knew it was something….he wanted to create neo-realism; a docudrama. He wanted to put ourselves into these situations and extract the answers while we were there. He wanted to do down into the heart of darkness; so to speak…get on that boat and search for answers. It was a period of time where I said, “I’m free, let’s go for it.” And it was a doozy.
*What drew Alejandro to the project? Fear. He talks about actually confronting the realities of the scripts such as dealing with shooting a horse; being surrounded by trees which he hates (Leo laughed, “I didn’t know that!”). So he wanted to confront all those things. It filled his heart with fear but also excitement.
*The mod asked Leo the challenges of doing a role with so little dialogue. “I wanted to push a narrative along without being incredibly articulate. So much of the work I’ve done before the character is a catalyst for driving the story along with words. I’ve done a lot of characters that are very expressive and wordy…. We did a Q&A in New York and we had the honor of having the great Martin Scorcese moderating it. He was talking to both of us about the movie which was an incredible honor. We were both like, “OMG, Marty is asking *us* questions about making movies.” (he relates that Martin Scorcese gives people DVDs of movies that influences him so in the past about silent films and silent acting and Scorcese has told Leo in the past that his strength is his ability to convey things without words). He asked Alejandro to pare down his dialogue more and more as he felt the character was a man of few words. “I felt anytime Hugh Glass opened his mouth it needed to be Haiku. He’s not one to mince words.” Hugh Glass is an outsider; he has a half-Native American son and he’s trying to instill into his son the ability to be silent; to blend into the background and not be ostentatious. That’s how you survive in a lawless world as that one.
*The cast rehearsed all day long with very specific camera angles. This rehearsal process helped them get in touch with their characters. The end of the day was panic filled as they rushed to get their scenes done before they lost the natural light. It was exhilarating and exhausting but they had to give themselves over to the process.
*The first attack scene took a month of rehearsals. He said the most fun was seeing Inarritu and Chivo get excited about filming ants or ice-caves and it felt like indie film makers with Super 8 cameras.
*Inarritu says “I have a life, not a career. Life dictates what you do.” So he doesn’t approach work in the sense of “what will this do for my career”. He lets it naturally germinate and when it impregnates him he acts on it.
*Leo was asked if there were things he refuse to do and he had to think about it. He says he thinks there was but he and Inarritu didn’t remember. He says that it was the most unique experience they’ve all had and it’s like a blur to the actors now that they’re out of it.
*Inarritu said he learned, working with Leo and Tom Hardy, was to give the best he can because they were giving the best they can. He says sometimes when you’re dealing with someone with limitation you have to learn to work around that limitation. He said none of the cast had that limitation so you can try different things. “What I always say about actors and actoresses: the emotional baggage..the eternal life that the person had and I think I couldn’t ask better-I can feel what Leo and a guy like Tom are as a person. They are full with a lot of things besides the craft. And then there’s the rhythm…
Leo: “Full of a lot of things?”
Inarritu: Some of it you don’t even want to know. But you know what I’m talking (about). (he says without rhythm you can’t create and the rhythm of the film is like a clock and the actors had that rhythm like jazz players).
He goes on to say that he feels actors need/deserve rehearsals and that it goes away because of higher budgets. He doesn’t necessarily believe that rehearsal kills spontaneity.
Leo: From an actor’s perspective working with someone of Alejandro’s caliber..you’re fortunate to work with someone of his diligence when it comes to authenticity. I remember talking to Jack Nicholson when we were doing “The Departed”, (as Nicholson) “You know what I love about working with Stanley (Kubrick) is you don’t need to think of anything. That guy has thought about every fcuking thing there is to think about.”
Mod: That’s pretty good.
Leo: I didn’t add the eyebrows, I could do it better. He said it frees you up as an actor because not only are you reacting to incredible real scenarios but you know you’re not within and without taking yourself out of the process of living in a process because he’s (Alejandro) thought about all of that. He was so incredibly meticulous… hearing him talk about greasepaint missing from one pant leg of an extra…it was like painting a master portrait and he looked at every single frame.
*Inarritu and Leo wouldn’t give indepth details on the bear attack scene as they didn’t want to ruin the magic of it but I’ve read that they used pulleys. But said it was all Leo and it was filmed in the wilderness of British Columbia.
*Leo says remembering reading the script and the scene just says, “Hugh Glass fights the bear” so I asked, “So, what do I do: do I give him a right hook? How do I fight a bear?” Then you realize it’s not a fight-you can’t fight a bear. You’re just maul. It’s like a cat throwing a ball of yarn in the forest-there’s no fight.
Not from the Q&A
*Leo wanted Hardy immediately and sent the script to him to see if he wanted the role. Hardy in turn reached out to his “Legend” and “Peaky Blinders” costar Paul Anderson and told him about the film and said that he should go in for a role. Anderson reached out to Inarritu and was cast. Presumably Leo just told Inarritu, “Lukas Haas and I are a combo” because Haas is in the film and likely didn’t have to do anything but grow a beard because he’s Leo’s BFF
And don’t let Leo blowing a kiss at Tobey Maguire make you think Lukas is in the corner!
A few weeks before the Q&A I was at the Arclight and saw Leo’s dad leaving “The Revenant”. I turned to the person I was with and whispered, “That’s Leonardo DiCaprio’s father!” And I was trying to be subtle because the theatre was adjacent to ours and I was worried he could hear me because there wasn’t much distance. The person I was with tried to be subtle too as we watched him walk away. She said, “Now I know how Leo’s going to look when he’s older because he’s halfway there to that now.”
When he was younger he looked like his mom, now he looks like a morphed version of both parents.
The display at the Arclight
On Twitter when you want to call someone out without naming names you subtweet; a tweet with just enough inferences that people automatically know who you’re referring to. I don’t know what Michael Bay’s politics are but this is a subtweet wrapped up in an action film. While not naming Hilary Clinton (those who knows about the fallout over the Benghazi attacks knows that Clinton was pilloried for it) the film spotlights the bureaucracy that led to the inaction that could possibly have saved assemblyperson Chris Stevens’ life after the compound he was staying in for a visit was attacked.
Needing money to support his family due to his income drying up, Jack Silva (John Krasinski, “The Office”) returns to military contracting work with his friend Tyrone “Rone” Woods who is embedded in Benghazi, Libya at a CIA military compound to protect the CIA employees there who are working to keep an eye on/recover weapons that civilians seized after the overthrowing of Muammar Gaddafi.
What Silva and Rone, and the other men in their squad: Tanto (Pablo Schreiber), Boon (David Denman), Tig (Dominic Fumusa) and Oz (Max Martini)
Think of as a babysitting job for the CIA agents on the base who resents their presence, the assignment turns into something more when the outpost where Assemblyman Chris Stevens (Matt Letscher) is and his security (David Guintoli and Demetrius Grosse) comes under attack.
Fighting for permission from CIA base manager Bob (David Costabile once again playing an arrogant, smug character)
the men wrestle with the choice of betraying their stand-down order which would give their position away or follow their hearts and intervene.
If you strip away the potential politics of the film (and to be fair to Bay he doesn’t name names-no references to Clinton or Obama and even “Bob” is not the real name of the CIA manager at the compound) it is a passable action film that leans on the well worn tenants of those films: bros being bros, incessant shirtlessness (we even get a beefy James Badge Dale in short-shorts!!!!!!),
wistful family phone calls so that you get emotionally invested in the characters and comedy relief (in the form of Schreiber’s Tanto. If you put Liev’s face on his body he’d be perfection
I take it back. I like Liev’s dad bod
While I think nearly all military film are pro-military propaganda I think really good ones show a balance of the real repercussions of war whether subtextual (“American Sniper”) or more obvious, but this one shows the real lapses in the military complex (bureaucracy, blame placing instead of problem solving) but doesn’t really take a position on it. This film shows men getting their arms practically shot off and instead of driving home the violence of war, Bay has the character just grip his gun tighter and shake it off as if his arm isn’t nearly dangling off. Because real soldiers don’t feel pain, right?!
The v. v. masculine and hairy cast
Though I’m a huge Badge fan, Dominic Fumusa was doing a lot for me.
I owe Zac Efron an apology: I thought he couldn’t pick a vehicle worse than “We Are Your Friends” but here we are with “Bad Grandpa”. Know what’s funnier than “Dirty Grandpa”? Fifty whales washing ashore and slowly dying in the baking sun as whalers harpoon them mercilessly while stubbing out cigarettes on them. You’re already in a bad spot when the title is so close to Johnny Knoxville’s “Bad Grandpa” a “Jackass” film where you already know the stupidity you’re in for.
Zac Efron needs to spend a smidge less time in the gym and more with his agent and figure out a script that isn’t the cinematic equivalent of Ebola.
Take a break from crunches, Zefron
I can’t say anything about Robert DeNiro because it’s evident he’s taking these roles for money. If people are willing to throw money at him like a stripper, he’s going to take it for he is, theoretically who instead of raking in the dough for their college education is doing it for his young children’s.
After Dick Kelly’s (DeNiro) wife dies he asks his grandson Jason (Efron) to drive him to Florida in order to connect with a former military friend. With his wedding brunch impending and other wedding plans needing to be formalized, Jason balks at the notion of a road trip, but Jason relents and the pair embarks on a roadtrip of debauchery.
The film costars Julianne Hough (“Rock of Ages”) as Efron’s perfectionist fiancée Meredith, Zoey Dutch (“Vampire Acadedmy”) as Shaddia, an idealistic woman from Jason’s past; Aubrey Plaza as Shaddia’s best friend Lenore a sex-crazed, foul-mouth with eyes for Dick (and for Jason’s grandfather),
Adam Pally (“Happy Endings”) as Jason’s crass cousin Nick and Jason Mantzoukas (“The League”) as Pam the scumbag for all seasons they encounter in Florida.
Mantzoukas and Pally were the most enjoyable bits about this movie. I can take crass, coarse, objectionable humor as long as it is humorous but the problem with this film and so many of its ilk is that writers (and boy do I use that lightly when I’m talking John Philips and this sh*tshow of a script. He’s also penned the sequel to “Bad Santa”) think f-bombs and a stream of other vulgarities can replace true wit and comedy. This film is enough to make Efron go back on drugs.
I’m still on my quest for a true scary film. “The Forest” ain’t it. Tis not even creepy. There’s a low bar for horror films and this one just barely clears it as the acting and the production value is good.
Sara (Natalie Dormer) receives a call that her troubled twin sister, Jess, who lives in Japan as a teacher has gone missing in the Aokighara Forest---a forest none as a suicide spot.
Having faith in her connection to her twin, Sara leaves behind her husband Rob (Eoin Macken) and flies to Japan in hopes of finding her sister. Once there she meets Aiden (Taylor Kinney)
a reporter who routinely joins park guide Michi (Yukiyoshi Ozawa) in patrolling the forest for bodies. In exchange for the story of her search for Jess, Aiden offers to go on the search with Sara. Upon finding signs of Jess in the forest, the pair decide to settle in the forest for the night despite Michi’s warning of the supernatural happenings there.
The concept is something that sounds better on paper as you think, “delving into the Aokighara Forest is interesting, right?” Turns out it’s not on its own and that’s where this film leaves it-alone. The film is more of a psychological, paranoia filled thriller that remembers occasionally, “Oh, yeah-we have to do something with this environment.”
Dormer is great and gets to play more than a damsel in distress; this is a first time I think where I’ve seen a female lead in a horror film that isn’t daft. She has great chemistry with Kinney.
but I think Natalie would have great chemistry with a tree stump
Not enough Eion for my taste
“Eddie the Eagle” doesn’t quite stick its landing but who am I to complain over getting to spend an hour and forty-five minutes watching Taron Egerton onscreen?
“Eddie the Eagle” is inspired by the true story (though embellishments abound) of Olympian Michael “Eddie” Edwards.
As a child Eddie (Egerton) washed out in every sport until gravitating to skiing which he hoped would help him achieve his dream of going to the Olympics. A dream his father (Keith Allen) thinks is impossible.
Failing to make the squad for being deemed not Olympic material, Eddie alights to the idea of trying to qualify as a ski jumper.
Realizing he’s woefully unqualified he seeks out coaching from Bronson Peary (Hugh Jackman), a washed out former Olympian who is now the Zamboni driver at the training facility.
Skillwise, years behind the other ski jumpers at the facility Eddie relies on guidance and his own can-do spirit to make his dream of going to the Olympics come true and prove the naysaying Olympic committee wrong.
Plucky film waylaid at times by the clumsy direction of actor/director Dexter Fletcher.
Not at all, Taron!
The film speeds along like a skier heading down the slope and that swiftness doesn’t give time for the moments to live. I think more time should’ve been spent showing what Eddie had to overcome.
Also it has a very 80’s soundtrack and a heavy 80’s synth score that is a bit distraction. Adding to the sheer 80’s ness of the film Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark lends a new song to the film titled “Thrill Me” with backing vocals from Jackman and Egerton.
The film also stars Keith Allen and Jo Hartley as Eddie’s parents, Tim McInnerny as the Olympic Committee head who tries to stymie Eddie’s chances and Christopher Walken as Bronson’s former mentor Warren Sharp.
The cast with Alan Rickman when he visited the set
~There’s a storm going on in the East coast but I still wonder if hell has frozen over because Tom Welling did a press junket for “The Choice”.
*I had to turn it off because the interviewer asked Tom if Sparks’ work made his eyes well and I just had to tap out.
Click to view