MOVIE REVIEW
Real Steel (2011)
HOW TO MAKE A MOVIE THE DREAMWORKS WAY
A fictionalized retelling of the pitch meeting for “Real Steel”
by
Sarah Manvel
INT. DREAMWORKS STUDIO OFFICES – DAY
The OFFICES in this fictional, imaginary story are large, expensive, sunny and full of tie-in merchandise from blockbusters past. FIVE EXECUTIVE PRODUCERS are sitting in elegant, expensive chairs around a polished boardroom table. STEVE is a bald man with a beard and an Oscar who is the professional partner of JACK, a close-shaven man in his mid-50s who got his start as an agent. They have long experience with producing movies aimed at children. MARY, in her mid-50s, has bright blond hair and grew up in the movie business before becoming a producer. Her brother JOSH, in his early 50s, has significant assistant-director experience and is also building his career as a producer. At the head of the table is STEVEN, a bearded, bespectacled man in his 60s who is an Oscar-winning geek turned studio mogul.
A SECRETARY is also at the side, taking notes.
Continue reading “Raging Mechanical Bull” »
MOVIE REVIEW
Jane Eyre (2011)
Laurie Sparham/Focus Features
In a world where movies focus on outcasts in superhero outfits and the nerd is currently king, it is a pleasure to note that there is at least one real man in Hollywood: That man is named Michael Fassbender, the Irish-German leading man willing to do many things for his art. These include playing a convicted terrorist in "Hunger," an adulterer willing to sleep with his girlfriend's teenage daughter in "Fish Tank" and a Nazi hunter who looks great in a black turtleneck in "X-Men: First Class." These roles are not the obvious route to pinup status. In fact, this career trajectory seems to belong to the new Harvey Keitel rather than the new Russell Crowe. But cinemagoers of the feminine type haven't had a man's man to admire onscreen since Mr. Crowe leapt, shotgun first, through the hotel floor in "L.A. Confidential." So Mr. Fassbender's work — whatever he does — is very greatly appreciated.
Continue reading “A Sargasso Sea Change” »
MOVIE REVIEW
Beautiful Lies (2010)
Trinity Film
"Beautiful Lies" immediately reminds you of half a dozen other better movies: Its original French title, "De vrais mensonges," literally translates to "true lies" in English. The film reunites "Venus Beauty Institute" alumni Audrey Tautou and Nathalie Baye on a salon set. We have the plot twist of "Cyrano de Bergerac" mixed with the setup of "The Hairdresser's Husband." And of course, by naming Ms. Tautou's character Émilie, the specter of Amélie Poulain is firmly present throughout.
Continue reading “A Shell Gamine” »
MOVIE REVIEW
Poetry (2010)
Kino International
Mija (Yun Jung-hee) lives a quiet life in South Korea. She has a small apartment which she shares with her grandson Wook (David Lee), whose mother works in a different city and is connected to them only by phone. Mija is a carer for Mr. Kang (Kim Hi-ra), an elderly man who has had a stroke and is housebound. For the most part she is cheerful and uncomplaining, although her grandson's manners leave a great deal to be desired. Then three things happen: The first of which is that she decides to take a poetry class.
Mija tells her daughter and Mr. Kang — who seems to be her only friend — that she has always felt like a poet, and has decided it's time to find out whether or not she has anything to say. The teacher of the class is male, but the students are mostly women who drink up his advice. The class is the exception in Mija's world, which seems primarily to consist of men telling her what to do and why she should do it. But Mija has her own ideas, and "Poetry" is about her learning to express them before it’s too late.
Continue reading “De die in carpe diem” »
MOVIE REVIEW
Sarah's Key (2010)
Julien Bonet/The Weinstein Company
"Sarah's Key" combines two initially different topics — the mass deportation of Parisian Jews in 1942 and modern-day Parisian property values — in a forthright, direct and respectful way. The main characters are two women of fearsome intelligence and drive. One is Julia Jarmond (Kristin Scott Thomas), an American expat and savvy journalist. The other is Sarah Starzynski (Mélusine Mayance), a blonde 10-year-old who learns incredibly fast what it's going to take for her to survive. But the way in which the stories are combined doesn't make it clear for whom this movie is aimed.
Continue reading “History Repossesses French Flat” »
MOVIE REVIEW
Horrible Bosses (2011)
John P. Johnson/Warner Brothers Pictures
Hollywood used to be much better about dealing with issues of class. For starters, class used to be an issue addressed in its movies. During the Great Depression, when studios took the trouble to dress up their leading actors in glamorous and ridiculous situations, they also ensured the characters were at minimum aware of their privilege. Hollywood also used to be able to differentiate between people deserving of the audience's sympathy and a bag of tools. "Horrible Bosses" proves conclusively that Hollywood nowadays can do neither.
Continue reading “Swimming With Sharks, or Sinking to Their Level” »
MOVIE REVIEW
Bobby Fischer Against the World (2011)
Dogwoof
Some celebrities are born. Others are made through willpower. Rarer are celebrities who attain such status in spite of themselves due to their sheer talent. Bobby Fischer was one of these, a chess player of unusual skill who began as a child prodigy. His victory, watched by millions, over Boris Spassky in the 1972 World Chess Championship in Reykjavik was a metaphor for the Cold War. And then he dropped off the radar.
This question of what happened is not really answered by director Liz Garbus in this documentary. Originally produced by HBO, it is being screened theatrically in Britain despite coming off very much like a made-for-TV documentary. This shows the hunger people still have for information about Fischer. But it is never clear what point Ms. Garbus, who has extensive documentary production experience, wanted to make about Fischer’s life.
Continue reading “A Life in a Dead Draw” »
MOVIE REVIEW
Putty Hill (2011)
Andrew Laumann/Cinema Guild
Detroit is a city where people searching for work have abandoned whole neighborhoods. New Orleans is still in the process of rebuilding after Katrina. But it's Baltimore that has become the emblem of the problems facing America's working class. HBO's "The Wire" spent five seasons showing the nuances of the city and its war on drugs to a transfixed international audience. And now "Putty Hill," a small independent movie, shows what drugs have done to the white working-class sections of Baltimore as well.
Continue reading “In the City of Desperate Living” »
MOVIE REVIEW
As If I Am Not There (2010)
2011 Seattle International Film Festival
"As If I Am Not There" is adapted from a novel by Slavenka Drakulić about a Bosnian woman during the Balkan wars of the early '90s, although no such identifying information is supplied until the end credits. Some works of art lend themselves well to adaptations; and some stories are so powerful that they deserve to be told in every possible medium. The main question this movie raises is: Why does it exist?
Continue reading “No Woman’s Land” »
MOVIE REVIEW
Viva Riva! (2011)
Music Box Films
It’s wonderful to see a movie that knows exactly what it is doing, and looks great while doing it. It’s fantastic to see a movie completely frank about sex, money and the violence people are willing to commit in pursuit of those two things. It’s brilliant to see a movie where the script is as smart as the staging, and where the staging doesn’t just make you wonder how much it has cost. And it’s so much fun to see a movie that takes its perfect setup and perfectly delivers.
Continue reading “Do That Congo Beat” »