Choke (2008) is Clark Gregg's adaptation of the Chuck Palahniuk novel, starring Sam Rockwell and Angelica Huston. The film is Gregg's directorial debut, though he's been in just about everything as an actor, usually as the semi-loser, semi-smarmy, all-harmless authority figure: the police chief, the protagonist's ex-girlfriend's new boyfriend, the annoying middle manager. Here he plays the boss at the Colonial Williamsburg theme park where Victor Manicini (Rockwell) works, alternately romancing the main milkmaid, and trying to banish Victor and his best bud Denny for anachronistic infractions.
The movie follows the novel pretty closely, and is well-cast. Sam Rockwell is a pretty good representation of Victor, the sex-addict and con-artist who may or may not be the son of God, and manages to capture the simulatenous love and disgust you have for the character. Angelica Huston is amazing and gorgeous, as always, and manages to add layer upon layer to her crazy mother character, with just brief snippets of backstory. Who wouldn't want Angelica Huston as your crazy, quirky, kidnapping mother? Besides Victor, of course. The relationship between these two is crucial to the emotional progression of the film. Sam is pretty good, but Angelica is better.
Kelly MacDonald is adorable as usual, and I was happy to see her cast as the unconventional Doctor Marshall. She's quietly quirky and sweet, and plays cute with Rockwell's Victor. Brad William Henke as the adorably stupid best friend is also pretty perfect. And, he's on Lost! One of the good guys! Even Gillian Jacobs as Cherry Daiquiri ("not her real name") is funny and memorable.
So, cute, clever, well-acted adaptation of a pretty good book. What's missing? I'm not sure. Tim Orr, the dp, was already on my list for Pineapple Express and All the Real Girls, and the cinematography is fine, good. The acting, direction and editing are all fine, good. And though Choke isn't my favorite of Palahniuk's novels (that honor probably still goes to Survivor), the movie didn't improve upon my experience of the book. Maybe it's too much like the book. It didn't really add to my imagination. Still, a promising debut and a set of lovely performances.
Sunday, January 3, 2010
Friday, January 1, 2010
Inglourious Basterds (2009)
Inglourious Basterds (2009) is Quentin Tarantino's World War II revenge fairy tale, a majestic fun-ride through a violent fantasy-land of good and evil, heroism and justice. Many critics have suggested that this is Tarantino's Spaghetti Western, his Dirty Dozen. But, I think, more aptly, it's part 8 1/2 and part Intolerance: his creative self-reflection and filmic self-defense. It is both an homage to the cinema he so obviously adores and emulates and an unapologetic reveling in the cartoonish, dialectic violence of his own filmmaking. There is plenty of the 13-year-old-aesthetic we've come to know and love with Quentin, but Tarantino also brings a real maturity to his storytelling here. Far from being simply a redux of Kill Bill with Nazis, as the previews may have suggested, Inglourious Basterds is a suspenseful and witty thriller and a sophisticated movie about movies.
Like most Tarantino films, this one has a clever structural set-up, divided into 5 titled chapters, and beginning, of course, with "Once upon a time...". The setting of the story has less to do with Jewish retribution and more to do with moral certitude. We know, before we even meet a single character, which guys are the good ones and which ones are the bad. We know the situation, the motivations, the conflict, the expected outcome, before any of it even begins. And this is the film's true Western heritage. No need to get up to speed historically or deal with pesky character layers, just jump right in and enjoy the ride. As Aldo Raine (Brad Pitt) notes to an unfortunate captive, "We like our Nazis in Uniform. That way we can spot 'em, just like that." Hitler is bad; Brad Pitt is good.
The real center of the film - and one I completely didn't expect - is film itself. Our heroine runs a cinema, where the premiere of a new Joseph Goebbels film is about to take place. The film is a propaganda piece starring an actual war hero, who happens to be pursuing the cinema owner, who happens to be a Jewish girl in hiding. The movies, used expertly by the Third Reich to appeal to the masses, also becomes the vehicle for retaliation against them, both literally and figuratively, as the cinema owner, her black boyfriend, a German film actress and British film critic working undercover, and the Basterds plot to take down Hitler. In the 5-act play of Inglourious Basterds, "Operation Kino", emerges as the falling action, 'the moment when the conflict between the protagonist and the antagonist unravels', the space where all of the story threads come together for - forgive me - a glorious denouement. Along the way, Tarantino gives us nods to Hitchcock and The Wizard of Oz; discusses German cinema, UFA under the Nazis, and auteur theory; and - bless him - devotes a full scene to dissecting Hollywood politics in the guise of a secret agent interview. Brilliant.
The cast is fun and eclectic as always. Brad Pitt looks like he's having a blast (and probably is), and falls in step pretty perfectly with Tarantino's diner dialogue. He's Rusty Ryan, except from the Smokey Mountains, with some "Injun' in him", now fighting Nazis! A pleasure as always. His kids must think he's pretty damn cool. Diane Kruger, as the German actress working for the British government, is glowing. Joshua Jackson is a lucky guy. She's, of course, actually German, playing a German, working for the British. While Michael Fassbender as Archie Hicox is a German, playing a Brit, pretending to be a German, whose poor German accent nearly gives them away. It's very meta. Indeed, many of the actors are German and French, speaking in their native languages. Daniel Bruhl, for instance, as the adorable and adored (and, unfortunately for his love life, the Nazi German) war hero Fredrick Zoller. Much of the film is subtitled as well, and language is often used as a chess piece, brilliantly so in the opening act.
Our protagonist is played Melanie Laurent, as sole survivor Shoshanna, who later assumes the identity of Emmanuel Mimeux, French cinema owner. She is lovely, and kind of reminds me of Juliette. She carries intense fear, cunning, and duly earned survival instincts with equal grace and authenticity. Our antagonist, Col. Hans Landa, or "The Jew Hunter", in case there was ambiguity, is played by Christoph Waltz with such lighthearted menace, you can't help but love and hate him at the same time. He's a joy to watch, the perfect villain. The two of them match one another well, and their showdown over strudel is perfectly crafted.
In fact, pretty much everything is perfectly crafted. The opening scene is spectacular, and I wouldn't take away any of his staged antics, even the pre-antics discussion about the locale of the imminent antics. It's a long film, but it's all necessary. Even the cartoonish violence, which generally has me hiding being my hand and cringing, is appropriate, in the way that something can only be appropriate to Tarantino. Confrontations are well-staged and, dare I say, cinematic. And let me just say, the red dress is fantastic.
Robert Richardson as DP does a really nice job. The palette is dark and rich and perfectly reflects the fantasy wartime Europe as Wild West I think Tarantino was going for. The women glow beautifully; and the dark, smokey restaurants and bar and, ultimately, the cinema are well-chosen set pieces for Tarantino's operatic choreography. Whether or not it's his "masterpiece", as he so humbly suggests, remains to be seen, but it made me love him all the more as a cinephile. You can practically feel his glee behind the camera as he pieces together grand scenes.
And yet, while it definitely has the self-reflexive "This is a Quentin Tarantino film" vibe, it frequently evolves into an absorbing and suspenseful narrative. The soundtrack pieced together from old Spaghetti Westerns didn't hurt either. As much as he is reflecting on film, here he also achieves that transcendent quality to which film aspires - the chance to get lost in a story, to root for the good guy and cheer when good triumphs over evil.
In between scalpings, of course.
Like most Tarantino films, this one has a clever structural set-up, divided into 5 titled chapters, and beginning, of course, with "Once upon a time...". The setting of the story has less to do with Jewish retribution and more to do with moral certitude. We know, before we even meet a single character, which guys are the good ones and which ones are the bad. We know the situation, the motivations, the conflict, the expected outcome, before any of it even begins. And this is the film's true Western heritage. No need to get up to speed historically or deal with pesky character layers, just jump right in and enjoy the ride. As Aldo Raine (Brad Pitt) notes to an unfortunate captive, "We like our Nazis in Uniform. That way we can spot 'em, just like that." Hitler is bad; Brad Pitt is good.
The real center of the film - and one I completely didn't expect - is film itself. Our heroine runs a cinema, where the premiere of a new Joseph Goebbels film is about to take place. The film is a propaganda piece starring an actual war hero, who happens to be pursuing the cinema owner, who happens to be a Jewish girl in hiding. The movies, used expertly by the Third Reich to appeal to the masses, also becomes the vehicle for retaliation against them, both literally and figuratively, as the cinema owner, her black boyfriend, a German film actress and British film critic working undercover, and the Basterds plot to take down Hitler. In the 5-act play of Inglourious Basterds, "Operation Kino", emerges as the falling action, 'the moment when the conflict between the protagonist and the antagonist unravels', the space where all of the story threads come together for - forgive me - a glorious denouement. Along the way, Tarantino gives us nods to Hitchcock and The Wizard of Oz; discusses German cinema, UFA under the Nazis, and auteur theory; and - bless him - devotes a full scene to dissecting Hollywood politics in the guise of a secret agent interview. Brilliant.
The cast is fun and eclectic as always. Brad Pitt looks like he's having a blast (and probably is), and falls in step pretty perfectly with Tarantino's diner dialogue. He's Rusty Ryan, except from the Smokey Mountains, with some "Injun' in him", now fighting Nazis! A pleasure as always. His kids must think he's pretty damn cool. Diane Kruger, as the German actress working for the British government, is glowing. Joshua Jackson is a lucky guy. She's, of course, actually German, playing a German, working for the British. While Michael Fassbender as Archie Hicox is a German, playing a Brit, pretending to be a German, whose poor German accent nearly gives them away. It's very meta. Indeed, many of the actors are German and French, speaking in their native languages. Daniel Bruhl, for instance, as the adorable and adored (and, unfortunately for his love life, the Nazi German) war hero Fredrick Zoller. Much of the film is subtitled as well, and language is often used as a chess piece, brilliantly so in the opening act.
Our protagonist is played Melanie Laurent, as sole survivor Shoshanna, who later assumes the identity of Emmanuel Mimeux, French cinema owner. She is lovely, and kind of reminds me of Juliette. She carries intense fear, cunning, and duly earned survival instincts with equal grace and authenticity. Our antagonist, Col. Hans Landa, or "The Jew Hunter", in case there was ambiguity, is played by Christoph Waltz with such lighthearted menace, you can't help but love and hate him at the same time. He's a joy to watch, the perfect villain. The two of them match one another well, and their showdown over strudel is perfectly crafted.
In fact, pretty much everything is perfectly crafted. The opening scene is spectacular, and I wouldn't take away any of his staged antics, even the pre-antics discussion about the locale of the imminent antics. It's a long film, but it's all necessary. Even the cartoonish violence, which generally has me hiding being my hand and cringing, is appropriate, in the way that something can only be appropriate to Tarantino. Confrontations are well-staged and, dare I say, cinematic. And let me just say, the red dress is fantastic.
Robert Richardson as DP does a really nice job. The palette is dark and rich and perfectly reflects the fantasy wartime Europe as Wild West I think Tarantino was going for. The women glow beautifully; and the dark, smokey restaurants and bar and, ultimately, the cinema are well-chosen set pieces for Tarantino's operatic choreography. Whether or not it's his "masterpiece", as he so humbly suggests, remains to be seen, but it made me love him all the more as a cinephile. You can practically feel his glee behind the camera as he pieces together grand scenes.
And yet, while it definitely has the self-reflexive "This is a Quentin Tarantino film" vibe, it frequently evolves into an absorbing and suspenseful narrative. The soundtrack pieced together from old Spaghetti Westerns didn't hurt either. As much as he is reflecting on film, here he also achieves that transcendent quality to which film aspires - the chance to get lost in a story, to root for the good guy and cheer when good triumphs over evil.
In between scalpings, of course.
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