Never Let Me Go

It's amazing how someone can come out of nowhere and become the "it" girl. Last year, Carey Mulligan was nominated for an Oscar for Best Actress for An Education, and this year she appears in Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps and Never Let Me Go. One minute, she was nowhere and the next, she is everywhere. Same for Andrew Garfield who also stars in Never Let Me Go and in The Social Network. Garfield and Mulligan along with Keira Knightly are young adults who have grown up in what seems at first to be a normal private school except for the fact that the students are afraid to go outside the school grounds and never go home for holidays. As we soon learn, they are being raised for only one purpose to be organ donors to the person they have been cloned from.

Never Let Me Go begins when the main characters are young children and they are only dimly aware of the future ahead of them. One teacher (Sally Hawkins) tries to tell the students what is really going on but she gets sacked by the imperial headmistress (Charlotte Rampling). But even Rampling is ambivalent toward these cloned children.  As she says later, "We took away your art because we thought it would reveal your souls. Or to put it more finely, we did it to prove you had souls at all."  Later as young adults, they know what is happening, but are very fatalistic about it. There are no attempts to escape their fate like in The Island where Ewen McGregor runs away when he finds that he has a similar fate awaiting him. In Never Let Me Go, it is rumored that the only possible means of escape is to fall in love in which case their sentences are stayed for a few years. But this proves to be a false hope and so we have to watch as first Knightley's character and then Garfield's start to undergo the knife and begin to die.

Never Let Me Go is based on the novel by Kazuo Ishiguro who also wrote The Remains of the Day and The White Countess. The director, Mark Romanek, yet another music video director, has directed only one feature film previously, One Hour Photo, and that was 8 years ago. But that movie was probably good preparation for Never Let Me Go which has little or no action and is all about the internal emotions of the three main characters as they come to terms with their "nasty, brutish and short" lives.  The cast is very good, particularly Mulligan, who has shown in her other roles a gift for understating her character. Garfield also seems well matched to this role. And Knightly, in a rare supporting role, is good as the most unhappy of the trio. Never Let Me Go is not a happy film but it is very well done.  This film like so many others is about the characters being in death spiral that cannot be stopped. And there are lots of scenes of long longing looks between the doomed students. But Never Let Me Go is a very beautiful film despite its quiet desperation. It will be getting a few Oscar nominations I think.

The Social Network

The Social Network probably had the most buzz of any movie coming out in 2010. It generated huge interest because, well, most of us, myself included, are part of the 500 million users of Facebook. And, of course, this review will be posted on Facebook when it is finished. But beyond that, while The Social Network is clearly a biopic of Mark Zuckerberg, one of the founders of Facebook (more on that later), it is clearly a fictionalized biography. And when you are watching the film, it is fun to try and guess what is true and what isn't. As is made clear (murky?) in the many lawsuits that started to fly around once Facebook (originally The Facebook) became a phenomenon, it wasn't just the brainchild of Mark Zuckerberg (Jesse Eisenberg). First there are the Winklevoss twins, who hired Zuckerberg to write the code for their social networking site, and also Zuckerberg's best friend and partner Eduardo Saverin (Andrew Garfield). And then there is Sean Parker (Justin Timberlake), the inventor of Napster who woos Zuckerberg away to California.

Although some (much?) of The Social Network has been fictionalized, it's a fun movie to watch. This film is all about betrayal. And, of course, the fact that the Winklevoss twins won their law suit and got $65 million, and Saverin (as portrayed by Garfield, pictured at right) won his suit and is now a billionaire, might give you an idea of who screwed whom. The role of Sean Parker (as portrayed by Timberlake, pictured below) who was instrumental in convincing Zuckerberg to screw his friends over, was an eye opener for me. 

The Social Network was written by Aaron Sorkin (The West Wing) and directed by David Fincher (Fight Club, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button) so my expectations were high going in. And I'm happy to say that the movie lives up to its hype. Somehow, Sorkin and Fincher have made a story about geeky guys sitting at computers 24/7 into an intense spy thriller. The Social Network is a lot like The Right Stuff, Tom Wolfe's book and movie about the Mercury astronauts. It is a meta-history, mixing real and fictional events into something that none the less feels right. 

It's very fun guessing what is real and what is fiction while you are watching The Social Network. Jesse Eisenberg was born to play Zuckerberg and he projects an amazing arrogant, geeky nastiness. Andrew Garfield, who I really haven't seen before, but now have seen twice in a month (He's also in Never Let Me Go), is a revelation. He's wonderful as the loyal friend of Zuckerberg who gets screwed over and fired, but then sues and wins.

Zuckerberg and his friends mostly stayed out of the fray as The Social Network was opening, but they were very serious about stating that Zuckerberg has had a girlfriend all along. My favorite scene in the movie is aright at the beginning and sets the tone for the whole movie. It shows Zuckerberg's girlfriend (Rooney Mara) dumping him except that he doesn't know that he is being dumped. It is a great scene written by the wonderful Aaron Sorkin, where there are about five conversations going on at once. When Zuckerberg's girlfriend leaves, she says, "You are probably going to be a very successful computer person. But you're going to go through life thinking that girls don't like you because you're a nerd. And I want you to know, from the bottom of my heart, that that won't be true. It'll be because you're an asshole."

Get Low

Robert Duvall seems like he has been around forever. He has been making movies as long as I've been seeing them, starting with Boo Radley in To Kill a Mockingbird in 1962. He has been nominated for an Oscar six times, winning once for Tender Mercies. He's one of the best of all time. His new film is Get Low which is a nice starring vehicle for an actor who is 79 years old. Duvall's character is a mysterious old hermit in the 1930's, who arrives in town one day to arrange his own funeral which is to take place while he is still alive. After the local minister (Gerald McRaney) demurs, the director of the local funeral home (Bill Murray) and his assistant (Lucas Black) step in and offer to arrange the funeral, for a price. At first the reason for Duvall's character to want this kind of funeral after avoiding human contact for 30 years is mysterious. One person who may know something is Duvall's sweetheart (Sissy Spacek) from 50 years ago. But even she is in for a surprise when all is revealed.

The story of Get Low is loosely based on a real-life hermit in Tennessee who arranged to have a funeral in 1938 while he was still alive. The funeral became a huge event with as many as 8,000 people attending. The denouement of Get Low is also a huge funeral with Robert Duvall in attendance along with a casket that he made himself. Of course, this is a movie so Duvall has a dark secret that has been eating away at him all these years and he wants to unburden himself before he dies. Even though Get Low has several A-list Hollywood actors, it still has the feel of a small Indie movie. The director, Aaron Schneider, is a first timer but he is a long-time cinematographer and won an Oscar for Best Live Action Short in 2003.

 Get Low is an entertaining movie, not the least just to see Robert Duvall and Bill Murray together on the screen. The two roles of curmudgeonly hermit and smarmy funeral director were made for these two guys. Lucas Black does very well up against these heavyweights and it's nice to see Sissy Spacek too. The two parts of the story, the first, whimsical, and the second, very dark, don't fit together that well, but Get Low is still worth putting on your Netflix lists even though it is mostly gone from the theatres. I'm guessing Duvall will get an Oscar nomination for this one.

Once Upon a Time in the West... of Italy

It's true. I love George Clooney. I've found that people seem to love him or hate him. He's made some films that I really like, Ocean's Eleven, Michael Clayton, Up in the Air, and Good Night and Good Luck. You can argue that he doesn't have much acting range and that he always plays the same character. But he does take chances with his roles and can do quite a bit with that one character he plays particularly in Up in the Air and Michael Clayton. His new movie is The American. In this film, Clooney's character is having a very bad day, over and over again. He plays a world-weary hit man who is reaching the end of the line. The first scene (very Fargo in Sweden), where he has to dispatch a couple of hitmen sent to kill him and then kills his girlfriend (Irina Björklund) because she has seen too much, makes it clear that he is a sociopath, but a very good-looking sociopath.

Then, he is off to Italy so that he can shoot a movie while staying at his nice house on Lake Como. Oh wait, I am mixing up George Clooney and his character. He gets in touch with his handler. We know there is trouble ahead because his handler always gives a big sigh when he answers the phone and hears Clooney's voice on the other end. Clooney is given one last job to do, involving many long scenes of him building a sniper rifle out of spare parts borrowed from an Italian auto mechanic who is the illegitimate son of the local priest (Paolo Bonacelli) who befriends Clooney and tries to save his soul. But as Clooney says, "I don't think God is very interested in my soul." He is making the gun for a beautiful hitwoman (Thekla Reuten) who appears from time to time to shoot and flirt with Clooney. But his romantic interest is in a prostitute (Violante Placido) (yes with a heart of gold) who offers him a dream of what life could be like if he actually had a life.

In case we aren't getting what kind of archetype Clooney is playing, he walks into a bar one night in the little Italian town where he is hiding out and Once Upon a Time in the West is playing on the TV. The barman explains that the director is Sergio Leone, an Italian. The American isn't exactly a remake of Once Upon a Time in the West but there are similarities. At first glance, Clooney seems to share some sociopathic tendencies with Henry Fonda's evil assassin, but in the end he is more like Jason Robard's desperado who is seeking some redemption at the end of his life. And the ending of The American has some echoes of Once Upon a Time in the West. In case you were wondering, no one plays a harmonica in The American.

 The American is an interesting character study, but only of one character, that of Clooney's hitman. Paolo Bonacelli, as the old priest who is Clooney's last hope, does the best job of making a real character in his few scenes. Everyone else other than Clooney is a bit one-dimensional. The director, Anton Corbijn is yet another music video director. That being said, The American is the Anti-Bourne movie. There are no montages of 2 second cuts and after the first scene of the movie, Clooney doesn't kill anyone until near the end. The American is all about the death spiral of Clooney's hitman and so it is just a matter of time before it all falls apart. And this movie is all about watching and waiting with Clooney for this to happen. Don't see The American if you are having a bad day.

 

Eowyn in Wonderland

The new film version of Alice in Wonderland, directed by Tim Burton, starts out very like Alice in Wonderland, but after she chases a white rabbit, falls down a rabbit hole and drinks something labeled, "drink me," and eats something labeled, "eat me," not so much. As time goes on, the film is less like Alice in Wonderland and more like a film with a bunch of characters named Alice, Red Queen, White Queen etc etc in a very derivative sequel that reminds one of Lord of the Rings and The Golden Compass. Oh yes, there is a Mad Hatter (Johnny Depp), a Cheshire Cat (Stephen Fry's voice), a caterpillar (Alan Rickman's voice), a Red Queen (Helena Bonham Carter, well mostly her head), a White Queen (Anne Hathaway), and an Alice (Mia Wasikowska), of course. 

And it all looks very Wonderland (in 3D!) but I guess the original story wasn't, hmmm, derivative enough. So Tim Burton thought to himself, let's have a dragon (Jabberwock) and a famous sword wielded by a young woman in armor (Lord of the Rings) and have her ride around on a Bandersnatch that looks a lot like a polar bear (The Golden Compass). And since Johnny Depp is playing the Mad Hatter, he can't be a minor character who isn't in the story much, so now he's the main character. Maybe Tim could have called the movie, "The Mad Hatter in Wonderland."

To be fair, even though the Jabberwock and the Bandersnatch are not characters in the Alice books, they were contained in a famous poem that appeared in Through the Looking Glass,

 "Beware the Jabberwock, my son!
  The jaws that bite, the claws that catch!
Beware the Jubjub bird, and shun
  The frumious Bandersnatch!"

And, of course, it was never meant to be Alice fighting the Jabberwock. But the scene actually works quite well in the movie. I think that all these extraneous action scenes were added for the 3D because most of Alice in Wonderland works just fine in 2D. 

There are three kinds of characters in Alice in Wonderland, those who are completely or mostly a real actor (Depp, Wasikowska, Hathaway), those who have their head attached to a CGI body (Bonham Carter, Tweedledee and Tweedledum), and those that are completely CGI. Some of the characters are really great, especially the CGI characters like the Cheshire Cat and the Caterpillar. Depp is always good but his Mad Hatter is a bit too Willy Wonka. Bonham Carter as the Red Queen is less than one dimensional, yelling her iconic, "off with their heads" over and over and over. I thought Wasikowska was very good as Alice. She is only 20 and I haven't seen her before except a bit of In Treatment. She was also in Amelia, and Defiance but I still haven't seen them. 

Tim Burton, what can I say? He's great. I'm not sure what he was thinking with this movie. With Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, he put his imprint on it, but stuck mainly to the story. His version of Alice in Wonderland brings First Knight to mind. This was a film with Sean Connery, Richard Gere and Julia Ormond playing characters called King Arthur, Sir Lancelot and Guinevere, which was almost but not entirely unlike the story of King Arthur. All this being said, Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland is a very entertaining movie. And the scene with Alice as Eowyn was definitely a nice "girl power" moment. So what the hell, go see it. You'll probably like it better if you've never read the books. But who cares. As the poem says, Twas brillig, and the slithy toves, Did gyre and gimble in the wabe: All mimsy were the borogoves, And the mome raths outgrabe.

 

A Girl and a Wife

I've read a couple of great books lately, The Time Traveler's Wife, and The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. And it just so happens that I also saw the movies based on these books within weeks of reading them. It's often hard for me to like films based on books that I've read. I much prefer movies based on books that I haven't read! But I was interested to see how these two excellent books were adapted into movies. Both movies are OK, but neither holds a candle to the original book. In both cases, much of complexity in the story is lost because of the constraints of fitting into a 2 hour movie format. When adapting books for the screen, two things usually happen. First, films tend to concentrate on the main storyline of the book and delete subplots that are deemed not to be central to the plot. Second, the director and the screenwriter adapting the book usually cannot resist making big changes even to the main storyline. In the case of The Time Traveler's Wife, and The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, the first thing to go was the romantic subplots. And both films change the endings as well.

The Time Traveler's Wife is a great title but it is also not quite right. It would be more correctly be entitled, "The Time Traveler and his Wife" because this story is told fairly equally from the points of view of both Henry (Eric Bana) and Clare (Rachel McAdams). Henry has a genetic mutation that causes him to travel, not quite randomly, through time. It is the first novel written by Audrey Niffenegger. And I have to say that the book totally blew me away.  I love time travel stories, and the way Niffenegger weaves the stories of Henry and Clare together back and forth through time is amazing. Clare meets Henry for the first time when she is a little girl and he is in his thirties and traveling back in time.

Then when she meets him as a young women in real time, he doesn't know who she is. On their wedding day, Henry disappears to another time and place, but luckily another older version of himself shows up to take part in the ceremony. These are just examples of the fascinating non-linear progression of the relationships in this book.  Henry even hangs out with different aged versions of himself quite a bit. The movie contains most of the main plot but the many layers of time traveling gets mostly lost so that the movie can be a reasonable length. Henry's first girlfriend, whose suicide haunts him throughout the book, is completely excised, and Gomez (Ron Livingstone), Henry's best friend and Clare's lover from afar, becomes a very minor character in the film. The Time Traveler's Wife doesn't have too many changes to the plot, but they do make it so Clare doesn't have to wait so long to "see" Henry at the end of the story. The book is very intense, first with the love affair that seems pre-ordained, and then by the increasing desperation of both Clare and Henry as they hurtle towards an end that they can see coming only too well. The movie well cast. I like both Bana (Star Trek, Munich) and McAdams (Sherlock Holmes, Wedding Crashers) but it is very bland, with none of the intensity of the book. And the special effects of the time travel are a bit hokey.

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo is a totally different kind of story from The Time Traveler's Wife but this murder mystery also has many layers of subplots. The movie version (in Swedish with subtitles) makes many changes to the plot of the book to streamline and simplify the story. And they also make a huge change from the book at the end of the film. In the film, the story concentrates on two people, Lisbeth Salander (Noomi Rapace), the "girl" of the title, and Mikael Blomqvist, a well-known journalist. The subplot that leads to the two characters crossing paths, has been cut from the movie so it doesn't flow as well. The main plot of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo concerns the disappearance of a 16 year old girl 40 years before the action of the movie begins. Blomqvist is hired to try and solve the mystery of her disappearance and Salander joins him in the search which leads far beyond the original mystery.

I don't see many Swedish films (Ingemar Bergman is no longer on the scene) but this film has a almost 50's feel, particularly in the music. And it was done in a very melodramatic style. I liked the casting of Blomqvist but I wasn't completely happy with Salander. But maybe no one can fill this role to match my imagination. It is interesting that even though The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo is in theatres now, David Fincher (Se7en, Fight Club) has already announced that he is directing a Hollywood version. It is definitely his type of movie with a dark plot and dark characters. I look forward to his version. Apparently, he is trying to choose between Kristen Stewart (Twilight) and Carey Mulligan (An Education) for the lead role of Lisbeth Salander. Mulligan might be good but Stewart was born to play this role.

 

Geoff's Top Ten Movies of 2009

The Oscars are coming up on Sunday evening, and the ten (that's right ten!) films nominated for Best Picture are in alphabetical order:

• Avatar
  
• The Blind Side
• District 9
• An Education
• The Hurt Locker
• Inglourious Basterds
• Precious: Based on the Novel ‘Push’ by Sapphire
• A Serious Man
• Up
• Up in the Air

 My list isn't completely different. Five of the films nominated for Oscars are also on my Top Ten List below. I have seen all ten Oscar movies and they are all good, well, I had a few issues with Inglorious Basterds. I resisted seeing Precious and The Blind Side as long as I could but I went to see them because I knew they would get Oscar nominations. And they were both good, but they didn't make my list. Avatar should get a special Oscar for visual effects, but it certainly isn't the Best Picture of 2009. It doesn't even make my Top Ten. Up was OK, but I didn't think it measured "up" to previous Pixar films.

 Here is my Top Ten List for 2009:

1. The Hurt Locker

My number one film of the year, which may in fact win the Oscar, is The Hurt Locker. Unfortunately, very few people have seen this movie. I think it is suffering because it is an Iraq War film, and apparently no one wants to see a movie about Iraq. But you have to see this movie. Director Katherine Bigelow has made a perfect edge-of-your-seat thriller about a bomb disposal team in Baghdad. This is an intense movie from beginning to end, and it just keeps ratcheting up the tension. The cast is mostly unknowns ( afew recognizable faces appear only to get blown up), but the lead, Jeremy Renner and the supporting cast are great. He is nominated for an Oscar for Best Actor. It's almost out of the theatres but go see it if you can. Otherwise, put it on top of your Netflix list.

2. Up in the Air

I really loved this movie. I will be just as happy if Up in the Air wins Best Picture as I would be if Hurt Locker wins. I know there are people (like me) who love George Clooney, and people who don't, but this is his perfect film. He is nominated for an Oscar, and so are his supporting cast members, Vera Farmiga and Anna Kendrick. In Up in the Air, Clooney's character lives in airports as he travels the country firing people, and trying to avoid any personal relationships. But eventually he has to put something in the backpack. This movie was directed by Jason Reitman, who also directed Juno. He really knows how to make a good movie. Up in the Air is great all the way through to the the very non-Hollywood ending. For more, look at my review of Up in the Air....

3. Star Trek

I was looking forward to the rebirth of Star Trek but at the same time, I was  dreading what they might do it. But my fears were unfounded. The new Star Trek is a great movie, both for people like me who saw the original "classic" Star Trek live, and for people who actually don't know James T. Kirk's middle name. The director, J. J. Abrams managed to hit the multiverse button for a fresh restart without losing the essence of Star Trek. The new cast, playing the same old characters, do it very well. My personal favorite is Simon Pegg's joyful portrayal of Scotty. It was also great to see Leonard Nimoy. But poor Winona Ryder. Was that her comeback?



4. District 9

District 9 came out of nowhere with huge buzz and it did not disappoint. It's nice to be able to put two SciFi films in my Top Ten in one year! This South African movie does a wonderful job of being great SciFi, as well as making a nice political statement. There are echoes of movies like The Fly, Robocop and Enemy Mine, but District 9 explores the time-honored plotline of a thoughtless all powerful person, who is suddenly forced to walk in the shoes of someone he has oppressed and looked down on. Director, Neill Blomkamp and lead actor Sharlto Copley have re-made Apartheid in a way that no one can forget. And there is clearly going to be a sequel. I can't wait.



5. The Messenger

The Messenger is the other Iraq film in my Top Ten. I saw both The Messenger and The Hurt Locker at the Nantucket Film Festival. This one is set mostly in the States, following two officers (Ben Foster and Woody Harrelson) as they inform people that their loved ones have been killed. This is a small movie of short vignettes full of horrible emotion. The one exception is one young widow (Samantha Morton), who Foster's character befriends and then falls in love with. Both Foster and Harrelson are dealing with their own ghosts as they try and do their jobs which wear them down a little more each day. Woody Harrelson is nominated for an Oscar for Best Supporting Actor.



6. An Education

An Education is a wonderful film about a teenage girl growing up in 1960's England. This could have been a very creepy movie given its Lolita-esque plotline, but it is saved from that by a wonderful cast led by the effervescent Carey Mulligan who plays the girl who wants to get out and experience life now, and Peter Sarsgaard, who plays the much older, charming but very smarmy con artist who promises her just that. Alfred Molina, Emma Thompson and Olivia Williams round out the great supporting cast. Mulligan gets a well deserved nomination for Best Actress for this role. For more, look at my review of An Education....



7. Crazy Heart

I really love Jeff Bridges, and he has more than earned his reputation as the most under-appreciated actor in Hollywood. Until this year, he had never won an Oscar or a Golden Globe despite doing movies like Tron, Starman, The Fabulous Baker Boys and The Big Lebowski. Bridges has been nominated for an Oscar four times previously, but this may be his year. He already won the Golden Globe for his role in Crazy Heart as a washed-up, alcoholic country singer, who decides his life isn't really over after meeting and falling for a young reporter (Maggie Gyllenhaal). Besides the great performances, the thing that makes this such a great movie is the music, composed by T-Bone Burnett, and performed by Bridges, himself. For more, look at my review of Crazy Heart....

8. Nine

Nine is yet another Broadway musical adapted to the screen. It didn't get much in the way of good reviews and it didn't last long in the theatres. But I really loved it. With a cast featuring Daniel Day-Lewis, Marion Cotillard, Penelope Cruz, Nicole Kidman, Judi Dench, Kate Hudson, Fergie, a pair of sunglasses,  and a beautiful little blue sportscar, I ask, what's not to like? The music is great and Daniel Day-Lewis can read from the phonebook as far as I'm concerned. Everyone in the cast, even Judi Dench, has a great boffo musical number. Like I said, I was blown away. For more, look at my review of Nine....




9. A Serious Man

What can I say about the Coen brothers? They are amazing. They make strange, compelling, sometimes repelling, films that are from another dimension. I don't like all their films but I really want them to keep making them. Last year they won Best Picture for No Country for Old Men about a serial killer with a bad haircut. A Serious Man couldn't be more different, and at first it doesn't really seem to be about anything. It just follows the day-to-day minutiae of the life of a Physics professor. But bit by bit, we see how every aspect of his life is beginning to fall apart, apparently because of bad karma. I found that this film just sucked me in and wouldn't let me go, which I assume is just what the Coen brothers had planned all along. For more, look at my review of A Serious Man....

10. The Road

The Road is a very good adaptation of yet another Cormac McCarthy novel (he wrote No Country for Old Men too). Maybe the subject matter was just too depressing when the real world seems to be falling apart around us but The Road sank without a trace. It is nominated for exactly zero Oscars. But you should see it. It is really good, and, yes, depressing. But Viggo Mortenson as the father and Kodi Smit-McPhee as the son with a few flashbacks of Charlize Theron as the mother make for a very atmospheric and beautiful film. For more, look at my review of The Road....






Some other movies I really liked last year: Julie & Julia, A Single Man, Public Enemies, Bright Star, Precious, 500 Days of Summer.