Author Archives: matterspamer

SPOTLIGHT: Adrien Brody

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Nobody would’ve believed someone who said Adrien Brody would be the science fiction star of 2010.  But here we are, with Brody offering up two performances in Splice and Predators that, along with his work in movies like King Kong, The Village, and The Jacket earn him a place among the most unconventional science fiction/fantasy stars working today.  However, Brody does much more than sci-fi.  He has triumphed the Oscars (The Pianist), solved murder mysteries (Hollywoodland), and searched for himself alongside his brothers (The Darjeeling Limited); whether or not the movie is that great, you can rely on Mr. Brody to create a character that you’ll want to watch and learn more about.  Here are his five most interesting to date.

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ARCHIVE REVIEW: Monster

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Monster
Directed by: Patty Jenkins
Written by: Patty Jenkins
Starring: Charlize Theron, Christina Ricci, Bruce Dern, and Annie Corley

You don’t have to say someone’s name to show who they are.  Some of the best biopics, most notably this one and Todd Hayne’s I’m Not There, never acknowledge the subject’s name until the very end.  On IMDB, Charlize Theron is cast simply as Aileen, not Aileen Wuornos.

Monster is proof of a lot of things, most notably that there really isn’t much to a name when you think about it.  Selby (Christina Ricci) simply calls her new lover Lee, an affectionate name in comparison to what most other people call her.

Street walker, hooker, prostitute- whatever you want to call her job, it defines her more heavily than anything in the sordid past that led her to it.  Monster starts out grabbing for your heartstrings, as Aileen narrates a look at her troubled childhood with a musing about being discovered like Marilyn Monroe.  In the enhanced colors of this dreamy flashback, we cut abruptly to her as an adult in the 80’s, sitting under a highway overpass as it pours rain.  In this movie, there are happy moments, and there is life.

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REVIEW: Dinner for Schmucks

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Dinner for Schmucks
Directed by: Jay Roach
Written by: David Guion & Michael Handelman
Starring: Steve Carell, Paul Rudd, Zach Galifianakis, and Jemaine Clement

The mainstream American comedy is in trouble.  Like the America pre-economic meltdown, it’s been lulled into a state of laziness.  Audiences are being tricked into the same movie over and over again by slick, money-grubbing studio executives, not unlike those bankers and brokers.  And so here we are with Dinner for Schmucks, the latest comic swindler from the modern studio system.

At the helm, if it even matters, is director Jay Roach, who previously brought us Meet the Parents, a funny if not overwhelmingly original movie with a diverse cast that drew in a lot of different people.  With this movie, we get the inevitable pairing of Steve Carell and Paul Rudd, who first worked together on the 40 Year Old Virgin.

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REVIEW: Mother

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Mother
Directed by: Joon-ho Bong
Written by: Eun-kyo Park & Joon-ho Bong
Starring: Hye-ja Kim, Bin Won, Ku Jin, and Yoon Jae-Moon

To call Mother, the latest effort from seminal South Korean filmmaker Joon-ho Bong, obscure would be putting it lightly.  Rarely does a movie of such visual beauty have such an odd sense of humor, especially when the subject matter is so dark.  It begins with its small female protagonist dancing alone in the middle of a wheat field. It ends with the same dance, this time in a crowded bus.  It’s hard to describe a reaction to this, and I’m sure it will differ for many viewers.  However, it summarizes the movie quite well.

What begins as an odd tale of a mother/handicapped son relationship quickly saunters into an intriguing murder mystery.  When her son (Bin Won) is accussed of the murder of the local nympho, the unnamed mother (Hye-ja Kim) sets out to prove his innocence.

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ARCHIVE REVIEW: Casino Royale

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Casino Royale
Directed by: Martin Campbell
Written by: Neal Purvis, Robert Wade, & Paul Haggis (screenplay), Ian Flemming (novel)
Starring: Daniel Craig, Eva Green, Mads Mikkelsen, and Judi Dench

A lot of people didn’t want James Bond the movie character to have an origin.  One of the most iconic screen characters of all time hadn’t needed one after twenty films, and with the announcement of some blonde nobody taking over for Pierce Brosnon, tensions rose and spite was emitted before the movie even finished filming.

When the movie came out though, stunned silence from those unfortunate critics.  Seeing Martin Campbell’s realistic reboot of the 007 franchise after the Brosnon super-hero version left audiences turned off gave fans and newcomers alike one of the most entertaining movies they’d seen in years.  In fact, Casino Royale rates up there with the best of the Bond films, and it may even be the best.

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Our (Belated) Best Male Performances of the Decade

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1. Daniel Day-Lewis- There Will Be Blood– Towering doesn’t even begin to describe Daniel Day-Lewis’ performance in Paul Thomas Anderson’s epic deconstruction of the American Dream.  He commands the screen with a ferociousness and method that makes him peerless among other living screen actors.  As Daniel Plainview, he creates a vision of greed as a replacement for love that is ferocious, haunting, and uncompromising.  Though Anderson was the visionary behind the camera, it would not have come to full fruition without the help of Day-Lewis.  Who else could belch the line “I drink your milkshake!” and make it sound like the coming of the apocalypse? Key Scene- In a three hour movie where he appears in every scene, it’s hard to choose one.  In the end, I decided between two confrontations between Plainview and the preacher Eli Sunday (Paul Dano).  The infamous “milkshake” scene actually takes second place the the excruciating baptism Plainview is ordered to endure to get the land he wants.  Now in Sunday’s arena, he is forced to pay for the sins of his past, namely humiliating the preacher by smacking him around in the dirt.  Now getting the sin slapped out of him and water thrown in his face in front of the whole congregation, Plainview loses that ever-important control.  In a surprising release of emotion, he appears to reach out to the son he abandoned.  Whether he likes it or not,  he’s been gotten to, and there will be… well, you get the idea.

2. Heath Ledger- The Dark Knight– A short-lived career bore many fruits for the late, great Ledger.  His performance in The Dark Knight won him a rare posthumous Oscar, though he would win the award almost any year he was nominated.  Nolan’s realistic retelling of Batman called on a new take for the Clown Prince of Crime, and Ledger answered with a vengeance.  Wielding a smile carved into his face, chipped paint, and mangy hair, he managed to create a definitive image of an already legendary character.  It’s an unforgettable performance that will haunt you forever.  Key Scene- The best scene in the entire movie is when Joker and Batman muse in a grim prison interrogation.  Ledger is terrifyingly real in the scene, laughing  as Bale’s Batman pummels him.  “You have nothing!  Nothing to do with all your strength!” he bellows.  It’s one of the best movie scenes in years thanks to his artistic dedication to this larger-than-life villain.

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SPOTLIGHT: Angelina Jolie

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As if she didn’t have enough cameras flashing on her, I’ve decided to shed even more light on the career, not private life, of one of America’s biggest obsessions.  As one-half of a Hollywood power couple, Angelina Jolie’s screen presence often takes the backseat to her personal life.  Like her husband, her career is full of impressive roles.  As I mentioned in my Salt review, Ms. Jolie seems to have two types of screen performances she excels at.  There is the emotionally charged Oscar contender, and the kick-ass action heroine.  While acclaim is shoveled upon her for the former, the latter brings home the bacon.  Jolie, like Meryl Streep, is an undeniable box office draw for the female market.  The number one success of a movie like Wanted will never be attributed to James McAvoy.  As Jolie’s career continues to grow, it will be interesting to see how she manipulates her public image and directs it towards a cause, or to making people feel something for that character on the page. Here are her current five best performances.

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REVIEW: Salt

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Salt
Directed by: Phillip Noyce
Written by: Kurt Wimmer
Starring: Angelina Jolie, Liev Schreiber, Chiwetel Ejiofer, and Daniel Olbrychski

In the age of the 3D cash-in, Hollywood has been lax on its movie stars.  Unless you call Sam Worthington, “star” of Avatar and Clash of the Titans, one, you don’t actually find many legitimate celebrities inhabiting these movies for more than a cameo.  You can say what you want about explosions and gun shots flying at you in 3D, but if you don’t have star power behind it, your movie will just be replaced by the next quick sell.

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ARCHIVE REVIEW: Amélie

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Amélie
Directed by: Jean Pierre-Jeunet
Written by: Guillaume Laurant & Jean Pierre-Jeunet
Starring: Audrey Tautou, Mathieu Kassovitz, Serge Merlin, and Clotilde Mollet

Deep despair, insightful narcissism, impossibly cultured people- these are all things associated with French cinema.  Though our overseas friends gave us the new wave, these things rode the surf as well.  American cinema has tried since the birth of the French new wave to implement it as carelessly as such French staples as Breathless and The 400 Blows.  What a strange, wonderful phenomenon it is that French filmmaker Jean Pierre-Jeunet turns French cinema on its head yet again with Amélie.

Amélie is as free-spirited, uplifting, and gracious as the protagonist its title speaks of (Audrey Tautou).  Rarely does a movie tackle optimism as straightforwardly as this, and it’s something new for the often dark and brooding films associated with French cinema.  During its more than two hour run time, Pierre-Jeunet’s film manages to make a mundane, normal life seem enthralling thanks to a hilarious, charming and original screenplay and some of the best visuals the cinema has ever seen.

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SPOTLIGHT: Jack Nicholson

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For our new Spotlight series, I decided to kick things off with one of the greats.  While this segment of the site may not always focus on big names, they don’t get much bigger than Jack Nicholson.  Exploring a career as acclaimed and a man as legendary as this is no easy task.  What these pieces will consist of are commonalities in the career of the subject, as well as five key films to see their work in.  As always, give us feedback about what you think!

Career: As previously mentioned, Nicholson’s career has been legendary for decades.  One of the greats of both the old and especially the new American cinema, he has forged an identity on the screen that is both iconic and consistently shifting.  A lot can be done with those eyebrows, and he finds something new every time.  Whether he raises them in madness (The Shining) or in smug victory (As Good as It Gets), they are part of what defines him as an actor.  Of course the other thing is that talent.  He has given us some of the most legendary movie characters of all time and also influenced many other fine actors.  His off-screen life is kept largely private, though he makes notorious awards show appearances and is a legendary playboy.  It would be ignorant to keep him out of those shows, since he alone has won three Oscars and been nominated for 12.  At the forefront of American screen legends, Jack is not afraid to take risks, and has made it a point to work with every director he’s wanted to work with and only rarely cashing in on his image (The Bucket List).  Though there are far more than five great performances from him, here are the highlights that showcase a different side to Hollywood’s definitive wily renegade.

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