Author Archives: matterspamer

ARCHIVE REVIEW: Lord of the Rings: Return of the King

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Lord of the Rings: Return of the King
Directed by: Peter Jackson
Written by: Peter Jackson, Fran Walsh, Philippa Boyens (screenplay), J.R.R Tolkien (novel)
Starring: Elijah Wood, Ian McKellen, Viggo Mortensen, and Andy Serkis

An epic by any standard and a finale to this behemoth of an undertaking, LOTR: Return of the King continues the evolution of Peter Jackson’s vision.  Bigger battles, higher stakes, and a conclusion drenched in emotion wrought the team behind this movie 11 Oscars, including Best Picture.   Does this make it the best one of the trilogy?  Not by a long shot.

While I wouldn’t go so far as to call Return of the King a disappointment, it is the weakest film of the three.  Though it is still excellent in many ways, most notably the battle sequences, it is held back by Jackson’s refusal to end it.  It essentially has an ending for each Oscar it won, also putting it in contention for the longest denouement in film history.  One of the biggest strengths of the Lord of the Rings movies was Jackson’s willingness to skim it down and make it fit a movie.  The last 45 minutes of this one are almost painful even if it is shorter than in the book.

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SPOTLIGHT: Cate Blanchett

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Cate Blanchett has come a long way in a short period of time.  One of the actresses to gain momentum in the 2000’s and rise quickly to critical praise, she has become an actress that everyone has seen in at least one movie.  It was probably Lord of the Rings, but in no way does that tiny part reveal to us the extraordinary skill this woman posseses.  She garnered much of her fame for playing Queen Elizabeth, and became the first person ever to win an Oscar for playing an Oscar-winning actress (Katherine Hepburn in The Aviator.)  She selects roles that will take her somewhere new, and by extention she takes us with her.  Whether she is a school teacher drawn into an affair with one of her students or Bob Dylan, Blanchett never hesitates to go to places other performers would stumble.

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ARCHIVE REVIEW: Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers

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Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers
Directed by: Peter Jackson
Written by: Peter Jackson, Fran Walsh, Philippa Boyens (screenplay), J.R.R Tolkien (novel)
Starring: Elijah Wood, Ian McKellen, Viggo Mortensen, and Sean Astin

Empire Strikes Back.  The Godfather Part II.  Terminator II.  These are all great middle entries in a trilogy, either on par or better than the first entry.  Add to that list The Two Towers.  With the quest(s) set up and the characters introduced, it’s time to have some fun.

Though this trilogy is one of the greatest literary adaptations, what really makes Lord of the Rings immortal is how it redefined special effects in movies.  While you may be taken on a largely character driven adventure across beautiful scenery in the first one, in this entry Jackson gets to show us even more of his new toys.  The Battle at Helm’s Deep, the giant Ents of the forest, and, of course, Gollum.

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TRAILER: Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps

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Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps
Directed by: Oliver Stone
Written by: Allan Loeb & Stephan Schiff
Starring: Michael Douglas, Shia LaBeouf, Carey Mulligan, and Josh Brolin

It’s kind of weird that with the slew of franchise reboots and unwanted fifth entries in series, Oliver Stone has decided to make a franchise out of his 80’s exploration of the costs of big money.  Even when you look at the times we’re in, it seems odd that Stone wouldn’t just make a completely different movie with different characters that explored the modern age.  But here we are, leaving one of the worst summers in recent memory, heading into a fall that hopefully lifts the year up.  Stone can either help or hinder with his oddly risky sequel, and from the looks of the trailer, he may in fact knock it out of the park.

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SPOTLIGHT: Laura Linney

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Few actresses stay under the radar and still garner as much acclaim as Laura Linney.  She hit her hot streak in the 2000’s with rich, respectable roles in small movies.  However, she has transcended the “indie darling,” label with struts onto the small screen in John Adams and her new headlining act on Showtime on The Big C.  Linney doesn’t just pick movies to make bank.  She does projects where the female characters she plays aren’t jokes, even if they tell them.  She has a knack for both comedy and drama, but her real gift lies in the middle ground (The Squid and the Whale, The Savages).  Few actresses can garner a chuckle and gasp in the same scene, but she does it expertly.  Though she often shares the spotlight with gifted male counterparts like Liam Neeson or Phillip Seymour Hoffman, she never lets them steal it.  She’s that rare actress that doesn’t try to steal scenes but still ends up doing it quite often.

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If they were in television… Lars von Trier

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Notable films: Europa, Dancer in the Dark, Antichrist, Dogville, Breaking the Waves, and The Idiots.

Famous for: Shocking his audience, controversy, female lead performances, depressing idealism, anti-religious undercurrents, beautifully unique visuals, low budget hand-held camera angles, talking about his fears and emotions, and refusing to watch his own movies.

Hypothetical title: Heaven’s Highway

Hypothetical premise: After being set up for a misdemeanor and kicked out by her polygamist family, lonely widow Gretchen kills her abusive father and flees her small west-coast mountain town.  Emerging from the mountains a completely new person, she begins rebuilding her life for herself, learning her sense of individuality and coming into her own.  However, the past catches back up to her, and she is soon on the run from the law as well as her haunting, abusive past.  She begins seeing delusional crimes committed in everyday life, mimicking both the ones her father did and the way she killed him. When the police catch her, there is no proof that her father was the patriarch of a repressive polygamist regime because nobody in it will talk but her.  She is sentenced to life in prison, but commits suicide after reflecting on how good her life was for those few months.

Cross between: Thelma and Louise, Dancer in the Dark, Big Love, and Dogville.

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REVIEW: Scott Pilgrim vs. the World

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Scott Pilgrim vs. the World
Directed by: Edgar Wright
Written by: Michael Bacall & Edgar Wright (screenplay), Bryan Lee O’Malley (graphic novels.)
Starring: Michael Cera, Mary Elizabeth Winstead, Jason Schwartzman, and Anna Kendrick

It almost seemed as if America had had enough of Michael Cera.  His “quirkier than thou,” acting career had cornered its hipster niche, and then pummeled it with character after awkward character until they just couldn’t take it anymore.  As we saw with his two earlier and still best movies, Superbad and Juno, his comic style’s effectiveness is screenplay dependent.  Thankfully, Scott Pilgrim vs. the World‘s got one of those, and it doesn’t pummel you with his long pauses or dopey, annoying sensibilities.

Another thing this potent, and fully alive comic book adaptation’s got is a visual style.  I’d rather be pummeled by fantastic visuals than awkward pauses any day, and director Edgar Wright does this.  It can overwhelm at times, and if it were in 3D it would kill you, but Wright effectively makes up for this summer’s lack of visual polish.  You’ll feel like you’re watching a music video and playing a video game, especially if you’re familiar with the artistry of both mediums.

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REVIEW: The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo

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The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo
Directed by: Niels Arden Oplev
Written by: Nikolaj Arcel & Rasmus Heisterberg (screenplay), Sieg Larsson (novel)
Starring: Noomi Rapace, Michael Nyqvist, Peter Haber, and Sven-Bertil Taube

No matter how many times it happens, it is always a disappointment when a movie adapted from a book doesn’t live up to its source material.  It happens too often, usually because it’s trying to please the fans or just doesn’t translate well as a movie.  Neither of these are the problem with The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, it’s that the wrong things were cut and not enough was condensed from the 600 page novel to keep a film viewer engaged.

For all of its narrative bumps, the chief success of this movie is capturing the grotesque and demented sense of discovery you get reading Stieg Larsson’s best-seller.  It follows Mikael Blomkvist (Michael Nyqvist), a disgraced Swedish journalist who leaves his self-financed magazine Millennium to help it survive his blighted reputation.  He is contacted by Henrik Vanger, an aging business tycoon  looking to tie up his loose ends.  He wants Blomkvist to help solve the 40 year old murder of his niece Harriet.  Blomkvist retreats to the island where the murder takes place, and where all the bitter Vanger family/suspects still reside.  Aided by the hacker Lisbeth Salander (Noomi Rapace),  Blomkvist embarks on a treacherous investigation that puts them on the tail of a serial killer that may or may not have killed Harriet.

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Five misleading movie covers

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A movie’s poster is often one of the biggest selling points outside of the trailer.  For this reason, studios release movie posters with a less-than-true representation of what we’re about to see.  This is especially true with small-budget films that they feel they can market to certain groups.  Comprised here are a list of 5 really blatant attempts to get you to watch a movie that isn’t what’s on the cover.

1. Kramer vs. Kramer-  This is a bitter movie about a mom (Meryl Streep) hopping town to deal with her life, leaving dad (Dustin Hoffman) with young kid.  The poster makes it seem like that family movie where the stakes are too low for the themes to mean anything, but this one hits hard.  When mom’s gone and dad’s bonding with the son he forgot he had, sentiment makes its way into the script’s veins.  In the bitter beginning and the grueling court cases though, the poster becomes a relic of something that died a long time ago.   It’s a terrific movie with terrific actors, but its charm only goes so far.

2. Happy-Go-Lucky- Indie rom-com this is not.  Mike Leigh’s criminally underrated character study of a stubbornly optimistic woman (Sally Hawkins) challenged at every turn is uproarious, charming, and insightful.  She does not exactly fall in love, and the guy giving her the piggy-back ride on the front is not the same guy who does it in the movie.  By any means don’t let it deter you from seeing this great movie, it’s not the run-of-the-mill indie romance it’s sold as.

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REVIEW: The Kids Are All Right

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The Kids Are All Right
Directed by: Lisa Cholodenko
Written by: Lisa Cholodenko & Stuart Blumberg
Starring: Annette Bening, Juliane Moore, Mark Ruffalo and Mia Wasikowska

You usually watch a movie about the inner workings of the suburban American family expecting to see it deconstructed, but sitting through Lisa Cholodenko’s bracing, hilarious The Kids Are All Right you watch something strange: it being rebuilt.  Following an economic crisis and subsequent rethinking of what it means to be American, Kids comes at the perfect time.  It rethinks the nuclear family on the silver screen by doing the most daring thing: not mentioning it.

Nic (Annette Bening) and Jules (Juliane Moore), the two moms at the center of the film, were each impregnated by the same sperm donor.  Now that their daughter Joni (Mia Wasikowska) has turned 18, her brother Laser (Josh Hutcherson) pressures her to contact the donor (Mark Ruffalo).  They do, it’s awkward, and it almost tears the happy family apart.

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