Downgraded from murder
Holiday Party Two of Four Depending How You Count Them was happening on Friday night so Marisa and I decided to see a movie at BAM before heading over to the One Story bash. The only real choice was The King's Speech which, I'll be honest, I was sort of planning on saving for that time in early January when I've seen all of the really exciting movies but there are a handful of Oscar hopefuls that I haven't been paying much mind and I have to see at least one or two of them. But: I'll take it now, sure, and save not ever seeing that Mike Leigh movie for January -- a rich January tradition for me, in fact. (I have never seen a Mike Leigh movie. The closest I've come is having Happy-Go-Lucky out from Netflix for several months now.)
So this movie is pretty enjoyable but I can't really imagine it going all the way with the Academy. I know it's the designated old-school choice in opposition to the sleeker and less emotional Social Network, but one thing I actually quite liked about The King's Speech is that it doesn't push the rousing stuff too far, which makes it a more respectable movie but also kind of a soft choice for the mainstream Oscar-y movie. The long scenes between Colin Firth and Geoffrey Rush are the heart of the movie, to the point where I sort of wished the other scenes and characters (not that there are legion) would recede even more -- the one-on-ones between Firth and Rush are remisicent of a play in a good, sharp, intimate way, and Tom Hooper doesn't make them feel stagebound, so much of the rest of the movie almost begins to feel superfluous. Apart from one horribly written revelation scene and future Oscar clip, featuring a phrase (included in the trailer) that the screenplay absolutely fails to arrive at organically, it's all nicely underplayed and empathetic. But, I don't know, if it makes it into serious contention at the Oscars, I'll probably like it a little less. That's not really fair, but it's also not the sort of movie that, for me, bears a lot of scrutiny particularly well. It's fun, though.
Then we went to the party and it was also good fun. There was an extremely friendly and hyperactive little kid up past her bedtime showing us the Christmas tree she helped decorate, and it's been awhile since I've had a good One Story staff discussion about, say, which of the X-Men you want to be versus which of the X-Men you are, or how St. Louis is apparently the most dangerous city in America (I'm not going to fact-check that one because it might just ruin jokes to know the truth).
Between first seeing the trailer and actually going out to catch a Saturday morning-matinee of The Tourist, my interest in it dwindled considerably, not least because of the surprisingly unenthusiastic reviews. Perhaps the movie got a boost from my dramatically lowered expectations (I'm not one to use critics as a guide, but for the Lives of Others director to garner so little support from just about any major critic is pretty hard to ignore), but I left the movie a little puzzled about what caused so much bile. I do have a theory that if one late-movie plot turn had not been there, the Tomatometer would've shot up ten or fifteen points. If that's the case (and there's no way to tell if it is, of course), I sympathize, because this plot turn is pretty stupid/nonsensical/arbitrary and didn't do much to endear the movie to me. But up to that point, I was really enjoying The Tourist, if not exactly admiring it, and even afterward, my net experience was positive.
By no means does The Tourist match the movies that so clearly inspired its tone: Hitchcock-and-Hitchcockian romps like To Catch a Thief and Charade. Big-studio big-star movies have trouble coming up with (or keeping) the kind of energy and, especially, snappy dialogue those movies thrived on, and this one certainly could've used some more zingers or good banter or something. But it's not as if this is a Knight and Day situation, where the makings of a romantic adventure story are smothered by cartoony action bombast and lousy writing. In fact, one of my favorite things about The Tourist is the way that director Florian Maria Georg Christian Graf Henckel von Donnersmarck evokes old movies in terms of pacing, filmmaking, and spectacle (or lack thereof). There's a poky, playful, old-fashioned quality to the movie that makes it pleasant and sometimes refreshing.
The dialogue not being as snappy, the story not being as clever, and Johnny Depp and Angelina Jolie not having amazing chemistry means it's sort of a B-level Charade or To Catch a Thief (although it's worth remembering that Thief, in the scheme of Hitchock's movies, is sort of B-level itself, albeit in a delightful way). But even though, yeah, Jolie does sometimes seem like she's posing instead of acting, and yeah, Depp is playing sort of a low-key dork, they're still fun to watch. I'm surprised by how few of the really crazy negative reviews acknowledge that underplaying is an acceptable tool in the Depp arsenal. Really, it's one of his great strengths as an actor; though almost everything he does is interesting, not everything he does operates on that Jack Sparrow level of craziness. One of my favorite performances of his is Once Upon a Time in Mexico, which is as quiet as Sparrow is ostentatious (and quite mad in its own way). This one isn't quite to that level, but he's still a pleasure to watch. The Tourist is unquestionably inconsequential, and it does risk ruining what little thematic and character interest it develops as it goes along, but I see an awful lot of worse and less amusing light entertainment.
Then it was back on the Oscar track with The Fighter, likely awards bait and far less likely David O. Russell showcase. The guy who did Three Kings and I Heart Huckabees takes on a more straightforward (true-ish) boxing story; Mark Wahlberg brings back his popular Bahston accent to play Micky Ward while Christian Bale revives his popular emaciated form from The Machinist and Rescue Dawn as Micky's crack-addict never-was brother. The boxing stuff is rousing enough, but apart from the climax, they don't always seem to have Russell's full attention -- it's not perfunctory, exactly, but Russell seems far more interested in the chattering Ward family dynamic. Wahlberg has to deal not just with Bale's unreliable (and often very funny) bullshit artist, but an overbearing manager mom (Melissa Leo, the working man's Marcia Gay Harden), and a bunch of insane foot-soldier sisters that might've driven Barry Egan to suicide, while trying to scrap his way into worthwhile fights and win the affections of a tough bartender played by Amy Adams (by the way: if the type-A Heigl Xerox she played in Leap Year tested the limits of my Amy Adams crush, hardscrabble mouthy URI-dropout Amy Adams gives it a whole new dimension. It's also just great to see her in a high-quality movie again, and not even doing the Disney charm she can turn on in an instant).
So it's more of a family drama than a sports movie, and one with lots of warmth and dark humor, to boot. I'm not sure, then, why I didn't completely love The Fighter; maybe it's just the limits of the material. The characters are all interesting and well-acted by everyone involved (especially given the potential for cliches; everyone makes the familiar elements of their characters feel real and vivid), but in the end, there isn't much room for spontaneity in the movie itself. It's rock-solid but not really transporting.
The movie year is winding down, and I don't want to sound closed off, but really, in terms of a ten-best list, the only important ones I haven't seen True Grit, Somewhere, and Rabbit Hole. (I'd love it if Blue Valentine turns out to be good enough for serious consideration, and I do want to see it, but I know how I tend to feel about miserablism.) Rabbit Hole happens this week (Marisa got a WC press hook-up!) after some other screenings that barring some kind of miracle or mind-altering substances will have no bearing on a best-of list of any sort, and the other two have to wait until closer to Christmas.
And now begins (or actually has already begun) a week of madness. Wish me luck.
So this movie is pretty enjoyable but I can't really imagine it going all the way with the Academy. I know it's the designated old-school choice in opposition to the sleeker and less emotional Social Network, but one thing I actually quite liked about The King's Speech is that it doesn't push the rousing stuff too far, which makes it a more respectable movie but also kind of a soft choice for the mainstream Oscar-y movie. The long scenes between Colin Firth and Geoffrey Rush are the heart of the movie, to the point where I sort of wished the other scenes and characters (not that there are legion) would recede even more -- the one-on-ones between Firth and Rush are remisicent of a play in a good, sharp, intimate way, and Tom Hooper doesn't make them feel stagebound, so much of the rest of the movie almost begins to feel superfluous. Apart from one horribly written revelation scene and future Oscar clip, featuring a phrase (included in the trailer) that the screenplay absolutely fails to arrive at organically, it's all nicely underplayed and empathetic. But, I don't know, if it makes it into serious contention at the Oscars, I'll probably like it a little less. That's not really fair, but it's also not the sort of movie that, for me, bears a lot of scrutiny particularly well. It's fun, though.
Then we went to the party and it was also good fun. There was an extremely friendly and hyperactive little kid up past her bedtime showing us the Christmas tree she helped decorate, and it's been awhile since I've had a good One Story staff discussion about, say, which of the X-Men you want to be versus which of the X-Men you are, or how St. Louis is apparently the most dangerous city in America (I'm not going to fact-check that one because it might just ruin jokes to know the truth).
Between first seeing the trailer and actually going out to catch a Saturday morning-matinee of The Tourist, my interest in it dwindled considerably, not least because of the surprisingly unenthusiastic reviews. Perhaps the movie got a boost from my dramatically lowered expectations (I'm not one to use critics as a guide, but for the Lives of Others director to garner so little support from just about any major critic is pretty hard to ignore), but I left the movie a little puzzled about what caused so much bile. I do have a theory that if one late-movie plot turn had not been there, the Tomatometer would've shot up ten or fifteen points. If that's the case (and there's no way to tell if it is, of course), I sympathize, because this plot turn is pretty stupid/nonsensical/arbitrary and didn't do much to endear the movie to me. But up to that point, I was really enjoying The Tourist, if not exactly admiring it, and even afterward, my net experience was positive.
By no means does The Tourist match the movies that so clearly inspired its tone: Hitchcock-and-Hitchcockian romps like To Catch a Thief and Charade. Big-studio big-star movies have trouble coming up with (or keeping) the kind of energy and, especially, snappy dialogue those movies thrived on, and this one certainly could've used some more zingers or good banter or something. But it's not as if this is a Knight and Day situation, where the makings of a romantic adventure story are smothered by cartoony action bombast and lousy writing. In fact, one of my favorite things about The Tourist is the way that director Florian Maria Georg Christian Graf Henckel von Donnersmarck evokes old movies in terms of pacing, filmmaking, and spectacle (or lack thereof). There's a poky, playful, old-fashioned quality to the movie that makes it pleasant and sometimes refreshing.
The dialogue not being as snappy, the story not being as clever, and Johnny Depp and Angelina Jolie not having amazing chemistry means it's sort of a B-level Charade or To Catch a Thief (although it's worth remembering that Thief, in the scheme of Hitchock's movies, is sort of B-level itself, albeit in a delightful way). But even though, yeah, Jolie does sometimes seem like she's posing instead of acting, and yeah, Depp is playing sort of a low-key dork, they're still fun to watch. I'm surprised by how few of the really crazy negative reviews acknowledge that underplaying is an acceptable tool in the Depp arsenal. Really, it's one of his great strengths as an actor; though almost everything he does is interesting, not everything he does operates on that Jack Sparrow level of craziness. One of my favorite performances of his is Once Upon a Time in Mexico, which is as quiet as Sparrow is ostentatious (and quite mad in its own way). This one isn't quite to that level, but he's still a pleasure to watch. The Tourist is unquestionably inconsequential, and it does risk ruining what little thematic and character interest it develops as it goes along, but I see an awful lot of worse and less amusing light entertainment.
Then it was back on the Oscar track with The Fighter, likely awards bait and far less likely David O. Russell showcase. The guy who did Three Kings and I Heart Huckabees takes on a more straightforward (true-ish) boxing story; Mark Wahlberg brings back his popular Bahston accent to play Micky Ward while Christian Bale revives his popular emaciated form from The Machinist and Rescue Dawn as Micky's crack-addict never-was brother. The boxing stuff is rousing enough, but apart from the climax, they don't always seem to have Russell's full attention -- it's not perfunctory, exactly, but Russell seems far more interested in the chattering Ward family dynamic. Wahlberg has to deal not just with Bale's unreliable (and often very funny) bullshit artist, but an overbearing manager mom (Melissa Leo, the working man's Marcia Gay Harden), and a bunch of insane foot-soldier sisters that might've driven Barry Egan to suicide, while trying to scrap his way into worthwhile fights and win the affections of a tough bartender played by Amy Adams (by the way: if the type-A Heigl Xerox she played in Leap Year tested the limits of my Amy Adams crush, hardscrabble mouthy URI-dropout Amy Adams gives it a whole new dimension. It's also just great to see her in a high-quality movie again, and not even doing the Disney charm she can turn on in an instant).
So it's more of a family drama than a sports movie, and one with lots of warmth and dark humor, to boot. I'm not sure, then, why I didn't completely love The Fighter; maybe it's just the limits of the material. The characters are all interesting and well-acted by everyone involved (especially given the potential for cliches; everyone makes the familiar elements of their characters feel real and vivid), but in the end, there isn't much room for spontaneity in the movie itself. It's rock-solid but not really transporting.
The movie year is winding down, and I don't want to sound closed off, but really, in terms of a ten-best list, the only important ones I haven't seen True Grit, Somewhere, and Rabbit Hole. (I'd love it if Blue Valentine turns out to be good enough for serious consideration, and I do want to see it, but I know how I tend to feel about miserablism.) Rabbit Hole happens this week (Marisa got a WC press hook-up!) after some other screenings that barring some kind of miracle or mind-altering substances will have no bearing on a best-of list of any sort, and the other two have to wait until closer to Christmas.
And now begins (or actually has already begun) a week of madness. Wish me luck.