Man on Film: Looper

This past week was a big week for this filmgoer, as not only did I get to see the new Paul Thomas Anderson film--an event for which I typically mark my calendar--but I also got to see the new Rian Johnson film, who for my money is one of the most exciting filmmakers working today. If a gun were pointed at my head, there are probably only four working directors whose work I anticipate with as comparable a fervor as I do Johnson's (for those wondering at home, the aforementioned Anderson, Malick, Cuarón, and my main man, Ben Affleck). Looper justified my anticipation while falling just a bit shy of my enormous expectations.

Any feelings about the film are chiefly informed by how enthralled one is by the world that Rian Johnson creates. Unlike perhaps any working director, Johnson has an ability to create a world around his characters that is informed by multiple genres, typically infusing the film with highly stylized dialogue reminiscent of masters like Chandler, Faulkner, and Wilder. In three times out, the end result has been captivating.

In the form of Looper, he infuses the post-apocalyptic time-travel subgenre with a healthy dose of noir styling, complete with the classic noir anti-hero living in the seamy criminal underworld. It's a winning combination, and with Johnson's panache and skills obscuring of  the ride is one filled with enough vim and vigor to distract the viewer from the various minor plot holes and foggy areas that typically lie just beneath the surface of his films.

The whole film works due in large part to the performance of the three leads, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Bruce Willis, and Emily Blunt. All are great. Reportedly a risk of late, Willis is fully invested. Gordon-Levitt is great, just as anyone who has been paying attention would expect as he's turned in fantastic performances in role after role. Blunt, who doesn't always seamlessly pull off what is asked of her, ably inhabits the person of the guilty single mother. Jeff Daniels's turn as the temporally displaced mob boss is a stand-out performance, giving him the chance to play the bad guy, albeit an atypical one. Hell, there's even a kid, and he's not horrible.

While I'll refrain from getting into plot, as that's not what I do here, I will say that Johnson smartly avoids the pitfalls of getting too heavily invested in the larger ramifications and technicalities of time travel. Johnson uses time travel simply as a plot device, a way to explore themes while avoiding the often dull scientific exposition and overly convoluted storylines. He makes the conscious decision to go down the route of making an ultimately understandable film, forgoing the potential for massive confusion of a film like Primer, which while brilliant would never play to a large audience befitting the cast and budget at play in Looper. By and large, that decision is a good one, and Looper is the latest in the storied line of fantastic time-travel action flicks that we all know and love. With Johnson's latest film closing in on 150% return on its budget, Looper's success can only mean good things for whatever his next project ends up being.

Man on Film: The Dark Knight Rises

It does not seem a stretch to deem The Dark Knight Rises the least successful of the Nolan-helmed Batman franchise. That isn't to say that it is bad--far from it, actually--but in relation to its predecessors, The Dark Knight Rises fails not only to raise the bar but also to reach the lofty heights of Batman Begins or The Dark Knight.

Now The Dark Knight Rises is a far cry from Spider-Man 3, not going so far as to sully the franchise, but it does have its warts. Without giving away too much for the four people in the world who haven't seen it, there are multiple sequences that are not particularly effective. For starters, the prison sequence really did not work and was the filmic equivalent of The Red Hot Chili Peppers' album Californication--a rehashing of a concept already covered by the artist with the revisitation lacking the requisite inspiration and freshness to make the latter effort work on a substantive level. While Bruce Wayne is in an anachronistic foreign prison (again), Gotham City descends into a bedlam in which criminals run amok and turn the city into a lawless hell on earth. Unfortunately the nearly instantaneous nature of this descent into unadulterated madness requires such a suspension of disbelief that in an otherwise fairly realistic and grounded world the change is jarring, and not in the way that Christopher Nolan intended.

If that was all there was to complain about, then that would probably be fine, but it's not. The amount of screen time in which Christian Bale is actually on screen as Batman is extremely limited. I know the film's plot calls for it, but that doesn't change the fact a Batman movie doesn't really have that much Batman. As for Bane, the big villain in the film, it's a little hard to take him seriously when he running roughshod over Gotham City while sounding like gay Sean Connery as Darth Vader (hat-tip to Tony Borne). I love Tom Hardy and don't blame him for this, but it undermines the menace Bane is supposed to represent when the voice-modulation induces laughter and confusion. And then there's the completely anti-climactic send-off of Bane, leaving the audience deflated and wondering what the point of it all was.

To read this review thus far, one would assume that I was displeased by The Dark Knight Rises. There were certainly elements that were disappointing. There were, however, elements to like.

For starters, the acting was top-notch. Michael Caine, who had been underutilized in the first two films, was finally allowed to stretch his legs, carrying much of the emotional weight in his scenes as Alfred. Anne Hathaway was perfectly serviceable as Selina/Catwoman. Bale, Hardy, and Marion Cotillard were exactly what one has come to expect of them over the past few years of impressive performance after impressive performance. Really, though, The Dark Knight Rises was The Joseph Gordon-Levitt Show. So much of the film is spent engendering a belief in the symbol of Batman rather than the man in the suit that its energy and plot depends largely on other characters, specifically on Gordon-Levitt's Blake. As anyone familiar with his body of work over the past decade would be sure, Joseph Gordon-Levitt is great. Any doubt as to whether the future of the franchise would be all right in the hands of another should at least be partially alleviated as long as Joseph Gordon-Levitt is involved. Creative talent involved would obviously play a part, but there is no need to worry about the star. If only there weren't that horrible Robin line in the film's coda...

Despite the film's shortcomings from the narrative spectrum, The Dark Knight Rises predictably looks fantastic. If there's one thing that Nolan can be counted upon to accomplish, it is to craft a film that looks amazing. Sure, he has spent his last two films crawling farther and farther up his own ass while forgoing actually focusing on constructing a complete and affective narrative, but they've looked great.

I suppose it is a testament to Nolan as a filmmaker that The Dark Knight Rises could actually disappoint, as he did craft the nearly perfect second film in the franchise. Unfortunately, he raised the bar himself and has no one else to blame for raising expectations for the series' conclusion, and while it was good, it was far from great.

Man on Film: 50/50

To anyone paying any attention over the past seven years, Joseph Gordon-Levitt has been attempting to establish himself as one of the rangiest young actors working. Starting at Manic and working your way through Mysterious Skin, Brick, Havoc, The Lookout, and Uncertainty, he has enough indie cred to keep most actors sated for a career and has covered a wide breadth of character types. 50/50 is a nice addition to his resume, one that he took on less than two weeks notice when James McAvoy had to pull out. His lack of time for preparation does not show at all.

Coming from a screenplay by Will Reiser (Paul's cousin) based on his own experience with cancer, Gordon-Levitt plays Adam, a 27-year-old public radio writer who finds out that he has neurofibroma sarcoma schwannoma, a rare cancer that attacks the nervous system (in this case, his spinal column) of people who have genetically inherited susceptibility to the disease. Despite living a safe and clean lifestyle, he finds his world falling apart.

While this premise could certainly go the way of the painfully melodramatic, the film manages to pull off the dicey proposition of being a successful cancer comedy. Throughout the film, the comedy seems to come naturally; hell, the whole film seems to unfurl organically. Humor, joy, pain, anger: all of these things are character-based. They never come across as even remotely forced, and there is a tone struck early that director Jonathan Levine sticks to throughout.

As usual, Joseph Gordon-Levitt is fantastic. Somewhat shockingly, Seth Rogen pulls off the somewhat dramatically demanding best friend role with aplomb. Bryce Dallas Howard and Anjelica Huston are well cast for their supporting roles, and the impossibly cute Anna Kendrick shines as the green therapist feeling her way through treating her third patient.

What 50/50 is is a smart, character-driven comedy dealing with a serious issue that touches just about everybody's lives. And it has a Gerry Rafferty song on the soundtrack, which speaks volumes.

Man on Film: Inception

So you may have surmised I was not head-over-heels in love with Christopher Nolan's latest film, Inception. Really, the stars should have aligned in such a fashion that the end result was a pleasing one to me. Aside from the perceived misstep that was the Insomnia remake*, Nolan has done little wrong in my book. Memento was a total mindfuck, and Batman Begins and The Dark Knight were head and shoulders above your standard superhero fare. Sure, The Prestige was a little cold, but it was certainly better than its Dante's Peak counterpart, The Illusionist, and Christian Bale and Hugh Jackman play pretty well off each other. Even Following was pretty damn good as I remember it.

*While I rather liked the original Swedish film, the resounding critical backlash surrounding the Nolan version combined with the choice of casting the two loudest over-actors in the past, well, ever was more than enough to scare me off.

With Leonardo DiCaprio, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Cillian Murphy, Michael Caine, Ken Watanabe, Tom Hardy, and Tom Berenger on board, I think there is justification for being pretty damn excited. DiCaprio has been pretty solid for the past five years or so, especially in the work he has done with Martin Scorcese. Joseph Gordon-Levitt has quietly become one of the most promising young actors in the business. The foreigners brought in were great, and it was pretty sweet seeing Berenger in a major motion picture again. While I am not insanely into Marion Cotillard, she was solid in the film, and the glaring potential problem was Ellen Page going in. She may not have ruined the movie, but she surely didn't help it either.

Now, gauging my feelings by the series of little "Inception is totally the best movie since..." posts, you can certainly tell that my reaction to the film is not the most favorable.

For the most part, I think Inception is a pretty good movie. It has a complex narrative structure that makes you think about the movie after you leave the theater. While you rack your brain trying to piece together the action, working out the layered plot, it would be easy to convince yourself that the movie you saw was mind-blowing.

But what did it really do?

Aside from the superficial complexity of the narrative itself, there isn't a lot of depth to the film. With the arguable exception of DiCaprio's Cobb (and if you are really reaching, Cotillard's Mal), there is not a single person in the film whose is even remotely developed. Even Cobb, the protagonist doesn't really have anything profoundly change him. How is Cobb discernibly different from the beginning to the end of the film?

Additionally, there really isn't much of a deeper philosophical meaning to the film. There is the "what this reality?" dilemma and the open ending, but I would hardly say that either element is anything more than a sly little trick and the existential conundrum is relatively insubstantial.

It may seem like I'm nitpicking, and perhaps I am, but I think the main issue I take with the film is the rave reaction that the film has gotten. It currently sits at #4 on the IMDB top 250. That's of all-time. Granted, as more of the populace sees the film, it will slip down the rankings, but I really don't see how this film even remotely compares to, say, Rear Window or Casablanca.

I will even allow for the fact that the movie is pretty "cool," but I would have to say most of the arresting visuals are in the first 45 minutes, and then we are treated to the actual mission. Within the mission, I would argue that the only sublime scene is the hotel scene with Joseph Gordon-Levitt in zero-gravity. The car chase and the alpine hospital sequence are both surprisingly pedestrian, and a lot rides on those being more than ordinary.

Clearly this review makes it seem like I didn't like the movie. I definitely wouldn't go that far. I liked it for the most part. In what had been a relatively shitty summer for movies up until its release, Inception was a breath of fresh air, but let's be realistic about the film. It has plenty of flaws, and some are fairly significant.

Find me a flaw in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. Casablanca. North by Northwest. Hell, The Sting is starting from a better foundation, and that's essentially within the same genre.

I just want the world to have a little perspective about this film. That's all.

Reading Rainbow: Recoil by Jim Thompson

For those of you who may need a refresher or a cluing in, Jim Thompson is the brains behind the books The Grifters, Pop. 1280, The Killer Inside Me, and The Getaway. He also wrote the screenplays for The Killing, and Paths of Glory. I recently read Pop. 1280 and rather liked it, but Recoil, which I couldn't have finished more than five minutes ago, was really great. I will refrain from too much exposition for fear of spoiling the element of surprise, but Recoil follows a paroled con through a labyrinthine mess of shady characters with murky motives in a way only the greatest noir does--unpredictably. Sixty-five years later it reads like it could have been written today, with its protagonist being just hard enough to do whatever it takes to not be a pawn but being just a step behind where he needs to be. The book reads faster than this entry--which I'm cutting off here--but Thompson's hard-boiled prose will burn your eyes into used lumps of charcoal, and that's a lot better than you can usually hope for.

Post Script: While finishing the book and writing this entry, I was watching Brick. If for some fucking reason you didn't see Brick, get your shit together and get a hold of it. It's been on the movie channels lately, but it's a great modernization of the noir genre starring the superb Joseph Gordon-Levitt.