Man on Film: Tower Heist

Clearly when one elects to go to Tower Heist, they are doing so because of the cast. This has to be the case as Brett Ratner is the director of the film. A quick perusal of his filmography sorted by IMDb user ratings shows that his highest rated feature-length 'film' was 2002's Red Dragon, which garnered an impressive 7.2. With his next highest showing being the atrocious X-Men: The Last Stand at 6.8, one should certainly temper his expectations regardless of other factors such as cast or screenplay. With Jeff Nathanson--one of the scribes responsible for IJ: KoCS and the second and third Rush Hour movies--as one of the two credited screenwriters, expectations get lowered once more.

The other credited screenwriter is Ted Griffin. If this means little to you, one of the films on his curriculum vitae proves especially meaningful when setting expectations for Tower Heist, and that is Ocean's Eleven. When I say that it proves especially meaningful when setting expectations, I mean that you can pretty much expect to see a working class, post-recession edition of Ocean's Eleven.

The problem with that statement lies with the credited directors of each respective film. Where Ocean's Eleven had Steven Soderbergh directing*, Tower Heist has Brett Ratner at the helm. No strength in casting is going to overcome that.

*While Soderbergh certainly has his detractors, I don't think many would put him in the same tier of directors as Ratner. For those keeping track at home, Soderbergh has directed 17 movies that have higher user ratings at IMDb than Ratner's second highest film. On a tangential note, the most disturbing aspect of these ratings, is that somehow Red Dragon's 7.2 rating is higher than The Limey, Out of Sight, and Sex, Lies, and Videotape, which all came in at a 7.1 rating. Now, when one looks at their Metascore, the stars realign and Red Dragon nets a 60 while The Limey (73), Out of Sight (85), and Sex, Lies, and Videotape (86) net ratings much more representative of their quality in relation to Ratner's oeuvre. I suppose all this proves is that IMDb user ratings are populist to a fault (albeit in an entirely anecdotal and incomplete fashion), but we all probably knew that.

So we find ourselves with a movie featuring the likes of Ben Stiller, Casey Affleck, Tea Leoni, Michael Pena, Alan Alda, Matthew Broderick, and Eddie Murphy, who in aggregate have more than enough comedic chops to carry a film. Stiller is not saddled with the role of the pensive and neurotic jew. Murphy, too, seems to have been freed from the shackles that have bound his funniness for the past 15 years. Yet, there are not enough laughs to go around in the screenplay. The only one who sticks out as being especially funny in Tower Heist is Michael Pena. This is sad.

There is a bevy of talent wasted here. Murphy had been given what everyone hoped was an edgier role--one that should have been an ideal vehicle from which to begin a comeback--but when all is said and done, the role has little in the way of comedic substance. Really, the same can be said for all the other roles. I'm not entirely sure that Pena's character had anything particularly funny written for him either. It could well be Pena breathing life into the movie on his own. This would make more sense than believing that somehow one role is funny as written in an ensemble film. It is easier to believe that we live in a world in which one character is funny because of how Michael Pena played him than the alternative in which two screenwriters and a much-maligned director combined to succeed in making one character amusing while the rest fell flat.

Needless to say, Tower Heist was not an impressive film. I suppose it wasn't awful, but a film in which the 99% try to get even with a member of the 1% who bilked them that fails to fully capitalize on a plot that has built-in goodwill cannot be classified as great either. This is essentially a middle-of-the-road caper comedy, which given this cast (yes, even with Ratner at the helm) is a disappointment.

Prick Tunes: Bon Iver "Holocene"

With the release of the Deluxe Edition of Bon Iver, Bon Iver with accompanying videos for each song (story here), it only makes sense to throw this great video for "Holocene" out there. The videos will be available as free digital downloads on iTunes with purchase of the album or (if I understand this correctly) at participating record stores on DVD with purchase of the album. This is set to be released today, November 29th.

Kids, ask your parents for an advance on your allowance and then figure out who is getting your extra copy of the album.

Prick Tunes: Michael McDonald "I Keep Forgettin'"

Smooth. As. Fuck.

It was a clear black night, a clear white moon...

Man on Film: Inni

There is a stark contrast between the previous Sigur Rós film, Heima, and the new one, Inni. Past the obvious differences in the visual palettes of each film, Heima sets the band against the backdrop of Iceland--their home country--while Inni is more intimate, essentially being a concert film. This makes sense, as their titles translate to "home" and "inside," respectively, from Icelandic.

While Heima sets off to contextualize the band with performances all over Iceland in various locales, Inni directs its gaze on the band themselves. This serves the apparent goal of the film. Filmed almost exclusively in close shots of the members of the band, often paring its focus down to shots of just the playing of the instruments or Jónsi's face while singing, Inni definitely brings the audience close to the band. Its grainy, 16mm feel is contrived--literally, in this case, as it was actually produced by filming the original digital stock in 16mm "sometimes through prisms and other found objects" as per their website--but does produce the desired effect of drawing the audience in to the concert experience.

That concert experience is much more the band's experience than the audience's, as the audience a largely removed from the film, which is honestly preferable. Unfortunately, in setting his aim so tightly on the band, director Vincent Morriset (and possibly the band) eschews the grandeur ever-present in Sigur Rós's epic brand of post-rock. The epic scope and the geography that makes itself known in their music are not completely gone, but they are certainly diminished. Perhaps this loss is meant to be supplanted by increased emotional investment, and the interstitial archival footage set between the songs does work toward this end, but the lost element of what worked so spectacularly well in Heima (and really, what works for the band as a whole) is not completely replaced by the heightened kinship.

Having said all that, Inni is a different glimpse at the band. It succeeds in bringing the audience to the stage, enabling them to experience the show vicariously through the band. When viewing Inni in a disappointed light, one does so by comparing it to the inimitable Heima, which may be the best music documentary out there. In a vacuum (or without having seen Heima), Inni is damn fine. Its stark black-and-white palette is engrossing. The light that intermittently bleeds into the frame bends the band into and out of the black, adding an affective expressionistic flair to the film. While the band's performances aren't set against the arresting backdrop of the Icelandic countryside, the filmic presentation of these nine songs is enthralling, even at this scale.

As the film concludes, one cannot help but look forward to 2012, as Inni whets the appetite for new Sigur Rós material tentatively scheduled for a spring release. This feeling is likely the most important thing take from this experience. When it's over, you want more.

Prick Tunes: Ice Cube "It Was A Good Day" and "Check Yo Self"

If ever there were a pair of songs that perfectly encapsulate my day-to-day life, it's these. To all you upstanding church-goin' folks out there, there's some coarse language in this one. You've been fucking warned.

Prick Tunes: R.E.M. "Pilgrimage" and "Begin the Begin"

Happy Fucking Turkey Day.

In honor of Thanksgiving, here are two songs from the recent disbanded R.E.M. that are very loosely tied to Thanksgiving in that one had "pilgrim" in its title and the other contains the lyric "Myles Standish proud" in it.

Standish, dandy man, killer of Indigenous North Americans

That's all I got.

Pilgrimage:

Begin the Begin:

(Neither of these songs had particularly good videos that didn't just have the album image, so unfortunately that's what you get.)

What the hell. Here's a little Artie Shaw for you, having popularized the original Cole Porter tune with this swing band arrangement.

Begin the Beguine:

Prick Tunes: Blind Melon "Walk" and "Skinned"

Before we get down to it, I'd like to give y'all a glimpse behind the curtain for just one second. I've been simultaneously having both internet connection issues (fuck U-Verse) and computer issues (it's running slow as fuck, and I can't properly watch the videos I'm embedding because they're playing choppy). This has made the past few weeks insanely frustrating from a blogging standpoint, and I can't watch Netflix because the PS3 will not stay connected to the horribly substandard AT&T U-Verse newer wireless modem. There are some Netflix things I've been wanting to do--one by request--but simply cannot do until this issue is resolved. Apologies. 

It isn't always easy finding the ideal video for these songs as many of them are not the typical songs for which a proper video is made. However, this does often mean that I will find nice live performances, some of which are more than 15 years old.

Spiderlanding it.

I would imagine that the bulk of America would categorize Blind Melon as a one-hit wonder. I suppose in the strict sense of the term they did just have "one hit" in the form of "No Rain," but one definitely would be remiss to judge them based on that one song, no matter how fucking catchy it was. In their original incarnation, they were led by the seemingly impossible to pigeon-hole Shannon Hoon, an Indiana boy who was comfortable enough to sing backing vocals on Guns N' Roses Use Your Illusions sessions and to usher in a somewhat drastic change from Blind Melon's first self-titled (and multi-platinum) album to their much thematically darker and heavily New Orleans-influenced sophomore release Soup. Soup was met much less enthusiastically than it should have been, and Hoon overdosed on cocaine while on tour, having been found on the tour bus in the city in which Soup was recorded, New Orleans.

From a MuchMusic program called Intimate & Interactive, here are my two favorite songs off of their second LP, Soup.

Walk:

Skinned:

Prick Tunes: Elliott Smith Lucky Three

Back in the early days of peer-to-peer filesharing, when one had already exhausted the depths of an artist's catalog from proper releases, he started searching far and wide for any other songs. Covers. Rarities. Demos. Alternate live versions. This was a largely frustrating experience, as downloading an entire user's shared catalog of The Kinks meant you were getting "Turning Japanese" or of Bob Dylan resulted in having a duplicate file of "Stuck in the Middle With You" as you had obviously already downloaded every Stealers Wheel song you could get your hands on.

Elliott Smith was an artist who got such a hold on the listener that it was impossible to sate that hunger for more material. His covers of "Harvest Moon," "Walk Away Renee," "Waterloo Sunset," "Because," and "Trouble" were so striking that they began to take over your memory of the original song, wiping it from your memory altogether and making each time you heard the original seem like they were covering him. There was perhaps no cover that accomplished this more completely than Elliott Smith's cover of Big Star's "Thirteen." This song was often labeled as being from Lucky Three, although to all but a few rabid fans, what Lucky Three was exactly was a bit of a mystery.

It's a short film shot in October of 1996 by Jem Cohen, who directed the Fugazi documentary, Instrumental, and the documentary about the frontman of Smoke, Benjamin Smoke. Seeing Lucky Three makes me sad as hell, as his death still sort of fucks me up.

Lucky Three:

Prick Tunes: Hayden "Bad As They Seem"

Hayden, who is perhaps best known for doing theme for Steve Buscemi's feature-length directorial debut, Trees Lounge, has  sporadically released six proper albums since Everything I Long For came out in 1994. Despite having toured with such acts as Feist and The National, his big break seems never to have come.

Born Paul Hayden Desser, the Toronto-based singer-songwriter recorded his first album Everything I Long For on a four-track recorder in his bedroom. "Bad As They Seem" is the primary single off of this first record. While it may not be the strongest track on the album, it did have a proper video made, so it is embedded here.

Now, I don't want to undersell that song. I do like it. I love how he captures the wandering gaze of the male eye and the ability to love nearly everyone who we can't have but are around constantly. Despite the simplicity of his longing for a girlfriend who isn't either of his unattainable neighbors, he manages to infuse the song with a wisdom he may not have even been aware of when penning the song.

For something with a bit more weight, I'll point you in the direction of "Skates" from the same album. Sadly, we've not got a proper video of any sort to insert here, so you'll get to look at the album cover and use your goddamn imagination. It's a sad damn song if you stick around for it.

For those interested in more, here is the link to an NPR interview for the Bryant Park Project, something with which I am unfortunately unfamiliar. The interview is fine, and he performs "Worthy of Your Esteem" from In Field & Stream and "Killbear" off of Elk-Lake Serenade if you would like a taste of later Hayden.

Man on Film: Melancholia

One could hardly qualify me as a Lars Von Trier fan. Having loathed Dogville and counting Breaking the Waves among my five most hated films, Dancer in the Dark was the only Von Trier film I've seen that I liked. But, I was absolutely taken with Dancer in the Dark and were I pressed to make a top ten list of the best films of the year 2000, the only one that I'd rank above it would have been Requiem for a Dream.

Obviously, Von Trier is a divisive auteur, particularly for this reviewer.

Now setting aside the fact that--if the now 13-year-old information that I gleaned from class my freshman year Astronomy class is correct--the entire premise of the film is impossible, Melancholia certainly has some arresting aspects to it. There are shots that are absolutely magnificent. The surrealistic nightmarish premonitions of the apocalypse at the film's open are fantastic in the truest sense of the word. The lavish wedding reception in "Part One: Justine" is the paragon of opulence, and setting it at an idyllic Old World manor injects an air of class into the film against which to contrast Justine's debilitating depression. Von Trier's lens also manages to capture Kirsten Dunst nude in as flattering a light as possible, pleasing those remaining holdouts hoping to see the girl in (insert appropriate decade-old film that was the last Dunst film anyone cared about here) naked.

As for Dunst, who took home Best Actress hardware at Cannes, she is actually pretty outstanding here. The role of Justine calls for her to reach manic highs and depressive lows. It requires that she be an at times evil bitch to her sister, played by Charlotte Gainsbourg. It sees her discard a merely hours-old marriage to real life Scandinavian God Alexander Skarsgard (how is that even possible, ladies?) while remaining utterly detached. And for the bulk of the time, she reaches into the depths of despair and wallows there, crippled. One could not qualify me as a Kirsten Dunst fan at this point in time, but she knocks this one out of the fucking park.

So far this review seems like a rave. I would be remiss if I didn't call attention to insanely long First Part. A lot of time is spent, and one could argue wasted, setting up just how beset by depression she is. Justine cannot evade the grips of depression, even on her wedding day. Luckily for the audience, writer/director Lars Von Trier's vision calls upon us to sit through a solid 58 minutes to establish this point. I am all for deliberate film-making, but there is a fine line between deliberate but compelling and slow enough that the viewer keeps checking their watch. This first act unfortunately falls into the latter category. Given that one is already checking the watch, the also long "Part Two: Claire" does little to alleviate the condition.

With the negatives out of the way, it is clear that this doesn't fall into the category of drab Danish masturbation that is Dogville or utterly loathsome filmmaking that Breaking the Waves qualifies as, which certainly says something. While not entirely without flaws, Melancholia is good. Perhaps that's a weak qualifier, but I am reticent to step out any farther onto this precarious limb on which I find myself. Maybe I should watch Antichrist to reconnect with my disdain for Von Trier.