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MOVIE REVIEW
Maps to the Stars (2014)
Bruce Wagner’s novel “Dead Stars” — the sister-mother to his script for David Cronenberg‘s “Maps to the Stars” once the production process had run its course — is fevered and fixated: a tirade about the sight of Hollywood parents and their kids locked in self-destruction. Its presiding spirits could include Terry Richardson, who’s miraculously never actually mentioned; and whoever first hacked into Jennifer Lawrence’s iCloud, whose coming is practically foretold. If Mr. Cronenberg had made his film equally feverish it might be easier to embrace, but instead he applies a bucket of cold water. Any actual zeitgeist is given such a wide berth that everything happens in a safely isolated sandpit, somewhere in a Never-Never-La-La-Land.
Continue reading “Burn Hollywood Burn” »
MOVIE REVIEW
The Double (2013)
Studiocanal
Sometimes the scheduling at film festivals and the sheer volume and variety of consumed material causes some unlikely connections and comparisons to emerge that would otherwise pass unnoticed. “The Double” received its 57th BFI London Film Festival press screening directly after Terry Gilliam’s latest, “The Zero Theorem,” and for the first half an hour it felt like we’d been left stranded in Mr. Gilliam’s universe. Both films are notionally very different, but the opening act of Richard Ayoade’s second feature will draw comparisons with “Brazil” in the way it posits its hero amidst an unforgiving and absurdist bureaucratic nightmare.
In fact, “The Double” recalls several films visually and tonally, notably some works of Roman Polanski’s and Orson Welles’s “The Trial” in particular. Some may be surprised by Mr. Ayoade’s cine-literacy and visual expressiveness, certainly in comparison with his first film, “Submarine,” which was generally rooted in the humble origins of small-scale British comic drama, despite its lush cinematography and Wes Anderson-esque flourishes. This redoubling of cinematic flamboyance from the former comedian and actor may raise some eyebrows in Britain; while not being as incongruous a cultural rebirth as Takeshi Kitano’s was to Japanese audiences, it’s still roughly akin to Americans imagining, say, that Aziz Ansari had directed a film like “Black Swan.”
Continue reading “Dead Ringers” »
MOVIE REVIEW
Restless (2011)
Scott Green/Sony Pictures Classics
Gus Van Sant seems to have devoted much of his filmography to rehearsing for that inevitable River Phoenix biopic. Indeed, the filmmaker has explored how young outcasts grapple with mortality from just about every angle — even the price-of-fame slant in the quasi-Kurt Cobain biopic “Last Days” — except one directly invoking Phoenix himself. Mr. Van Sant’s latest, “Restless,” continues this journeying, albeit this time in the timeworn boy-meets-terminally-ill-girl variety.
Continue reading “My Own Private Idée Fixe” »
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” »