Month: February 2011

Yesterday afternoon I saw Unknown (Warner Bros., 2.18), the latest European-set Liam Neeson paycheck actioner. I haven’t time to review it now, but it’s not bad in a “somewhat better than meh” sort of way. It’s nowhere near the level of the Bourne films, but it’s actually a touch more plausible than Taken, for what that’s worth. And it offers a winning, at times amusing performance from Bruno Ganz, so at least there’s that.

I do think, however, based on the obligatory and run-of-the-mill car-chase sequence in this film, that it’s finally time to retire the two-vehicle chase once and for all. It’s always been a stupid fantasy that one car could chase another at ridiculously high speeds for ten or twelve minutes through a major city like San Francisco (home of the original Big Kahuna car chase in Bullitt) or Paris (where the great Bourne Identity and Ronin car chases occured) or New York (The Bourne Ultimatum) or Berlin (where Unknown is set), and not have something or someone put an end to it fairly quickly.

Car chases are fine, but you have to introduce (a) traffic jams, (b) much more chaos, (c) cops and (d) the sudden abandonment of cars and/or motorcycles and running on foot and then the pursued figuring out an escape or a hiding place (nobody ever hides in a dumpster!) as he/she runs along.

You need cops most of all. Never in the history of movie car chases has a cop car ever gone in pursuit of both the chased and the chaser and pulled one of them over and given them a ticket (or cuffed them) for reckless endangerment. Not once.

Every so often you need the hunter to simply lose the hunted because of traffic snarls or a slow truck or moving van. And every so often a hunted party has to abandon the vehicle and get out and run like hell, like Matt Damon‘s Jason Bourne has done (I think) at least once. And every so often a pursued party has to steal an unlikely vehicle — a U.P.S. delivery van or a kid’s bicycle or an ice cream truck. Or — here’s a good one — the pursued has to throw a 70 year-old lady out of her car and drive off with it, and then the car runs poorly or runs out of gas. And when’s the last time a chaser went after somebody who was riding a train, like in The French Connection?

And that was just off the top of my head, There are so many different ways to enliven or reshuffle the chase formula, and yet filmmakers, it seems, rarely throw in any wackadoo moves. Or banal ones.

Will someone with a PDF of the shooting script for the new Arthur (authored by Peter Baynham and Jared Stern, based on characters by Steve Gordon) get in touch so I can straighten out a confusing issue? I’d like to know if the about-to-open remake (Warner Bros., 4.8) has changed the original story so that Liza Minnelli‘s Linda Marolla character, who wound up with Dudley Moore‘s Arthur at the end of the 1981 original, is now, in the person of Greta Gerwig, a secondary character. Or not.

Obviously the new Arthur poster more or less declares that Jennifer Garner is playing Russell Brand‘s primary love interest even though she’s playing “Susan Johnson,” the somewhat bitchy character played by Jill Eikenberry in the 1981 original — whom Moore wound up shafting. I realize, of course, that Gerwig might “be” Liza Minnelli, and that the poster image is simply a marketing decision because the Eloi (i.e., the ticket-buyers who would rather face firing squads than watch Greenberg) doesn’t know who Gerwig is.

Here’s how I put it to a couple of Warner Bros. publicity pals a few minutes ago:

“I’m really confused by the Arthur poster, guys — can you please help?

“Greta Gerwig is playing Liza Minnelli’s character in Arthur (called ‘Linda Marolla’ in the ’81 film, now called either Linda or Naomi in the new version?), and yet the new poster has a shot of Russell Brand, Helen Mirren and Jennifer Garner (who’s playing Jill Eikenberry’s character in the ’81 film, whom Dudley Moore’s Arthur ultimately dumped in the original).

“This obviously indicates to everyone that Garner is playing the principal romantic interest. So have the filmmakers totally switched the story around or what? Or are they just putting Garner on the poster because she’s a well-known star and Gerwig isn’t as well known?.”

IMDB cast list for the original 1981 Arthur.

IMDB cast list for the newbie.

4:15 pm update: A Warner Bros. spokesperson has gotten in touch and said the following:

(1) This is a teaser poster. Another piece of Arthur art will be seen down the road. (Hint: Gerwig may be featured on subsequent art?)

(2) There is a romantic relationship between Greta Gerwig and Russell Brand’s character in the film. The spokesperson indicated the ultimate outcome of this relationship, but then asked me not to repeat what she said. But it’s not tragic.

(3) Gerwig’s character is called Naomi and not Linda Marolla (as Minnelli was called in the ’81 film).

(4) The new Arthur is a reinvention and not a straightforward remake.

(5) One example of this, she said, is that Hobson, the character played by John Gielgud in 1981, is now played by Helen Mirren. But I think most of us knew that a long time ago.

It’s being alleged that this Charlie Brown painting, found on the wall of a fire-damaged Santa Monica building, is a recent Banksy creation. This too. Which, if true, tells us that Banksy is possibly in L.A. for the Oscars. I’ll believe it when Matt Dentler and/or John Sloss tell me so.

CBS reporter Lara Logan has reportedly checked out of a hospital five days after suffering a beating and sexual assault last Friday in Tahrir Square. Logan’s story is appalling and yet odd. Her attackers were presumably anti-Mubarak types who’d been celebrating the Egyptian leader’s resignation from office, an obvious contrast from the beatings and shovings that Anderson Cooper, Christiane Amanpour and Katie Couric received earlier at the hands of pro-Mubarak thugs.

And why, I wonder, did this story lie dormant for four days before breaking yesterday?

The Daily Beast‘s Howard Kurtz, a friend of Logan’s, has written that the episode “underscores that the Middle East remains a particularly dangerous place for women.” Particularly, I would add, for Western-culture women of stature, as this presumably stirs resentment. “It is hard to imagine that…members of the mob didn’t realize that she was an American television correspondent,” Kurtz comments.

I’m also presuming that Logan’s blond hair was some kind of factor. Few things in Cairo (or anywhere in the Middle East, I’ve guessing) say “well-heeled American or European woman with connections” more than a well-cut golden mane. Something tells me that if Logan looked like Rhea Perlman she might have been left alone. Or maybe not.

Most of us are under the impression, I think, that the patriarchal and sometimes brutish attitudes of many Middle Eastern men toward women make typical Mediterranean males — once the leading standard-bearers of sexist behavior — look like radical lesbians.

In a 2.15 interview with Moviefone‘s Sharon Knolle, Unknown star January Jones is asked about her role in Matthew Vaughn‘s X Men: First Class (20th Century Fox, 6.3), a prequel which is set in 1962.

“But it’s so, so different,” Jones explains. “I didn’t ever feel like I was in the ’60s, except every once in a while when someone would say ‘groovy.’ Which I’m not even sure is historically correct for 1962!” Check. “That might be more late ’60s,” Knolle remarks. “We took some liberties,” Jones says.

Why make a “period” film if you’re not really gonna do “period”? Because you’re figuring the under-30 audience won’t know the difference and possibly because you’re a wee bit clueless? Between Jones’ comment and the ’80s-era aircraft glimpsed in the X-Men: First Class teaser, I’m persuaded that X-Men: First Class will be a further diminishment of a once-respectable brand.

That’s it for Vaughn in my book. I thought he might be someone to watch after Layer Cake, but he’s chosen to be a sloppy fantasist. His last offense was that ridiculous fight sequence at the end of Kick Ass when Chloe Moretz‘s Hit-Girl decked all those 250-pound bad guys. Over and out.

Keith Bearden‘s Meet Monica Velour (Anchor Bay, 4.8) is about a soulful dweeb-nerd (Dustin Ingram) seeking out and then trying to merge on some level with an ’80s softcore porn star (Kim Cattrall) who’s now a 49 year-old single mom living in an Indiana trailer park. You can imagine where it goes. But right away I was struck by a few things that didn’t seem right.

(1) In the just-released poster, Cattrall doesn’t look like herself. To me she looks like a somewhat older nondescript hottie with an opaque expression. This apparently isn’t the case in the film itself, but why present Cattrall so she looks like an impersonator or wannabe or a tranny?

(2) In the slack, one-note trailer, Ingram is shown gaping at Cattrall as she does a lazy striptease inside an Indiana “gentleman’s club.” This awestruck, open-mouthed expression was used, of course, by scores of young actors in scores of tits ‘n’ zits comedies released from the early to late ’80s. The entire film, one presumes, is contained in this one dumb-assed image — stunned, worshipping, horndoggy, innocent, etc.

Dustin Ingram in Meet Monica Velour trailer.

(3) How interested are you in seeing a sexual-current MILF film directed by a guy who looks like Stephen Hawking?

Meet Monica Velour director Keith Bearden

(4) The following appeared last spring on the Tribeca Film Festival’s Meet Monica Velour webpage.

(5) Bearden said that before making the film, “My big concern was, ‘She’s way too good looking!’ I was like, ‘You need to gain weight, and the goal is to blow people’s image of you into tiny little pieces. I’m going to make you look bad at every turn.'” I wouldn’t expect Cattrall to look like her Sex and the City self. Her character is supposed to be down at the heels, etc. But why would I want to see a film in which the director has tried to make her look “bad”? Isn’t a 49 year-old single mom trying to survive in the strip-club world demeaning enough?

It’s one thing for an Academy member with a need for cuddly-bear emotion to vote for The King’s Speech as Best Picture — I get that. But it’s another thing for a hot-shot critic like the Philadelphia Inquirer‘s Carrie Rickey to endorse this mushy mindset. Plus she’s wrong in her assessment of Jesse Eisenberg‘s Mark Zuckerberg character.

“Why is The King’s Speech expected to win if The Social Network is The Movie That Speaks to the Moment?,” she asks. “Because while both are about entitled individuals, finally The Social Network is about a guy who doesn’t question his entitlement and The King’s Speech about a guy who is grateful to those who help him maintain his entitlement — and title. The takeaway of Speech is one of gratitude [and] a warmer, fuzzier feeling than the ambiguity of Network.”

Then comes the kicker: “If I were voting, I’d give Speech Best Picture and Network Best Director.”

In other words, Rickey is saying she agrees with the conventional wisdom (which every critic who knows a thing or two has mocked during this Oscar season) that warmer, fuzzier films do deserve the Best Picture Oscar. Meaning…what, that she also approves of Driving Miss Daisy having won the 1989 Best Picture Oscar?

I’ve gotten and agreed with the emotional argument from time to time (like with Titanic), but The King’s Speech doesn’t really kill emotionally — it marginally soothes. As New Yorker critic Anthony Lane wrote last November, “To a large extent, The King’s Speech is…one of those comedies of threatless reassurance [that] revels in the restitution of order.”

And like all geniuses from the beginning of civilization until today, Eisenberg’s Zuckerberg doesn’t question his entitlement (i.e., his vision and intelligence) because he knows what he knows and that’s what all geniuses have as an ace in the hole — supreme confidence. They might be faulty in the friendship and loyalty areas, but no genius worth his or her salt questions the value of his/her intellectual percolation. Anyone who looks at a genius and says “where’s the heart and the soul?” just doesn’t get it. That’s like looking at a racehorse and saying “why can’t he play the piano?”

“Don’t read Jeff Wells’ Hollywood Elsewhere rant on Incendies,” MSN’s James Rocchi tweeted about 15 hours ago. “Smug, whiny, spoilers. Actually, end that clause right before ‘rant.'” That’s fired-up emotion talking. When a bright critic falls for a certain film and then somebody trashes it? Rage. (Except I didn’t “trash” it.) Rocchi is a very dapper gentleman (he wears nice suits) and has always been very friendly and gracious in person so I don’t take it personally. And by all means, listen to guys like Rocchi on Incendies. But don’t say I didn’t warn you. Because I shovel the straight dope.

According to Rope of Silicon‘s Brad Brevet, the only new elements in Warner Home Video’s upcoming Stanley Kubrick Bluray set (due on 5.31) are the Bluray debuts of Lolita and Barry Lyndon. The rest (Universal Home Video’s “shiny” Spartacus, Dr. Strangelove, 2001: A Space Odyssey, The Shining, Full Metal Jacket, Eyes Wide Shut) have all been released before. But WHV won’t be making Lyndon and Lolita available as stand-alones, although they’ll probably change this policy sometime in the fall. And that sucks. I feel badly for serious Kubrick-heads (i.e., those who’ve been buying Kubrick Blurays all along) who will have to wait.

I can’t get my arms around Ralph Fiennes and John Logan ‘s Coriolanus until I see a trailer, at least. I’m sorry but that’s how it is. Congrats to Harvey Weinstein for picking it up in Berlin. The reviews have been exceptional. The Hollywood Reporter‘s Ray Bennett called it “a bloody delight.” Wait — I don’t like that term. And I don’t like “bloody” used as an adjective.

To go by this mp3 audio of Charlie Sheen doing the Dan Patrick show, the man is still in deep denial. “Get me right now, guys…right now! I’m not in AA, I don’t believe in it…I was bored out of my tree [when I was sober]…a vodka drunk is more linear…I’ve done research in the field…what’s wrong with my brain, Dan?” Sheen hasn’t crossed over and gotten clean. He’s still hanging around on the mad cackle side.

Sheen’s best line comes when he’s asked whether he liked Wall Street 2. “Uhhm…it was interesting. I think it waited too long.”

Robert Duvall‘s Network performance is incandescent. His “CCA hatchet man” Frank Hackett is one of the most entertaining and live-wire bad guys in movie history. I’ve no argument with Jason Robards having won the 1976 Best Supporting Actor Oscar for playing Ben Bradlee, but Duvall wasn’t even nominated.

That’s because Ned Beatty‘s burn-through as CCA chairman Arthur Jensen was, I suppose, but Duvall ruled — he was a huge kick in every scene.

Duvall’s big Network scene (“It’s a big fat, big-tittied hit!”) begins around 5:08 in the above clip. Here’s the isolated scene that I can’t embed. The other ’76 Best Supporting Actor nominees were Burgess Meredith and Burt Young in Rocky (both of them?) and Laurence Olivier in Marathon Man.