This is the first in what will be an ongoing series.
I derive an inordinate amount of joy from finding odd or unexpected early appearances from actors who I’ve become familiar with later in their careers. So much so that I tend to collect a mental inventory of such appearances, and so I thought it’d be fun to start to catalog them. Most of these aren’t really unknown—Internet searches would readily turn up plenty of mentions, jokes, and discussions—but they tend to be a little obscure and more often than not largely forgotten. It’s my intention to post about some of these as I find them, as well as to write about those from my already-established mental backlog from time to time, as a continuing series.
One of the funniest such roles comes from Jon Favreau. In 1994, he made an appearance in season 5, episode 20 of Seinfeld. This show is a veritable treasure trove for finding bit parts and cameos by actors who would later be much more recognizable, several of whom became established television actors and would go on to star in their own series. None are as awkward—nor as presumably embarrassing—as this one, though.
In the episode, entitled “The Fire,” George Costanza finds himself at a children’s birthday party arguing with the hired entertainment about one of the forebears of his profession. In the role of the clown is Jon Favreau, who two years later would star in the generation-defining Swingers, which he also wrote. From there, several other film roles would come, as well as further television appearances (including a stint on Friends where he played a software billionaire with unrealistic dreams of becoming an Ultimate Fighting Champion). These days, Favreau is establishing himself as a respected director, coming off the resounding success of Iron Man, the sequel to which is currently in production.
Back in 1994, though, he was Eric the Clown:
“This is just a gig, it’s not my life.”
Status: In theaters (opened 6/19/09)
Directed By: Harold Ramis
Written By: Harold Ramis & Gene Stupnitsky & Lee Eisenberg
Cinematographer: Alar Kivilo
Starring: Jack Black, Michael Cera, David Cross
This is funny: An early-history buffoon named Zed (Jack Black), trying to prove his skills as a hunter, notices the tracks of other humans and, proudly demonstrating his tracking ability, notes that “they stopped here to poop.” This is not: He picks up the shit and eats it. Such miscalculations are par for the course with Year One, a comedy that goes overboard in all the wrong ways and squanders a lot of would-be funny situations with ill-conceived, dumb humor, while exhibiting absolutely no sense of cohesion in the process.
I have an idea of how this movie was written: Harold Ramis, Gene Stupnitsky, and Lee Eisenberg got high and made themselves laugh imagining corny situations in Biblical times, and then wrote these situations out as scenes of a film, loosely stitching them together with a clichéd rescue-the-maidens plot device. Like so many Saturday Night Live sketches of the past decade, most of these scenes have the distinct feel of something that probably sounded funny in its conception, but just doesn’t play up to its potential as written. Come to think of it, maybe I just happened upon some insight into the SNL writing process, too.
In a formula that is sure to make a sub-100 minute movie feel like it’s 3 hours long, Year One’s first act is its funniest. Zed the hunter bumbles his way around his tribe’s village, and eventually gets banished for eating from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. His friend Oh (Michael Cera), the gatherer, leaves the village with him as they back their way into their quest. Most of the early expository scenes (if you can call them that) are most readily characterized by the laziness of their production: after setting up a few relatively funny scenarios, the film is quick to drop them without anything resembling resolution, only to move on to the next incompletely-conceived scenario.
Oh, for instance, is attacked by a boa constrictor, which slowly wraps itself around him while Michael Cera spouts pithy Michael Cera dialogue. We then abruptly cut to the next scene to find him back in the tribe’s village, unharmed, with no explanation of how he was able to escape and no knowledge of what became of the snake. (This being a movie set in Biblical times, I thought it reasonable to expect that this snake—which appears beside the tree with its forbidden fruit—was a well-known character, but if that was the case it’s never clarified. The snake also is denied any dialogue with which to explain itself.)
In another scene, a panther leaps out of a tree and attacks Oh (this time he doesn’t even have a chance to spout pithy Michael Cera dialogue). We immediately cut again to the next scene, and while at least this time he has some scratches on his legs, proving that the filmmakers didn’t simply forget about the preceding encounter, again there is no mention of how he escaped.
As they go about their quest to rescue their love interests (Juno Temple and June Diane Raphael) from slavery, Zed and Oh meet several Biblical characters, all played by quality actors whose cameos provide most of the comedic high points of the film: Cain and Abel (David Cross and Paul Rudd), Abraham and Isaac (Hank Azaria and Christopher Mintz-Plasse), even briefly Adam and Eve (Ramis and Rhoda Grffis). There are further cameos by Bill Hader as a pissed-off shaman, Kyle Gass as a eunuch, and… well, the list goes on and on. Like most of the film’s individual scenes themselves, these characters are generally funny at first sight, but then, quickly realizing they don’t have much to do, their charm wears off along with their comedic value. The possible exception is David Cross, who as I’ve mentioned before is one of my favorite comedians. He pops up repeatedly throughout the movie, usually with a funny quip, always overacting just enough to try to eek out more laughs than are actually there. He also gets the best—if not the most obvious—line of the movie: “You wanna know the best thing about Sodom? It’s the sodomy!” Now that’s funny.
It’s almost tempting to view this as a time travel movie. Black, Cera, and Cross behave exactly as they do in every other movie they’ve been in (most of which take place about 2000 years later than this one), while the rest of the characters around them vaguely posture as if they’re actually from Biblical times. I found myself wondering if the straight-forward approach wouldn’t have been a better one to take, in fact. While Year One does go for a bit of a fish-out-of-water feel at times, though, it’s certainly no Army of Darkness in that department.
There is one good running gag that comes from the Biblical setting, involving repeated use of the phrase “to lay with” and its variants as a euphemism for sex. It’s a joke that never gets old no matter how many times it’s used throughout the film. Unfortunately it’s the only joke for which this can be said.
Not that this movie is going for any semblance of historical accuracy, but the mish-mash style of its storytelling only adds to the feeling that it’s little more than a disjointed collection of uncompleted sketch ideas. Even its very title is suspect: I’m no theology expert or anything, but I’m pretty sure that the story of Abraham choosing his imaginary friend over his son comes significantly prior to the whole phantom semen thing. (So much earlier, it might even come from a different book altogether… but I’m no expert.) Never mind that, though—y’know what else is funny? Circumcision!
One of the things I’ve found (to my pleasant surprise) that I enjoy about having the MLB Extra Innings package on DirecTV is that I get to watch a lot of baseball games with other teams’ announcers calling the plays. While the quality of the commentary varies widely—particularly in regards to the hometown bias factor—it’s kind of nice to watch some games from the other team’s point of view. I also get a nice sampling of what kinds of coverage and commentary there are around baseball. A lot of the time this gets annoying, though, especially with some of the smaller-market teams, which aren’t able to attract (and pay for) quality announcers.
In the NL Central, which is the majority of the baseball that I end up watching, the Cardinals, Pirates, and Reds tend to have announcers that shade more towards the “hillbilly fan” end of the spectrum, while the Cubs, Astros, and Brewers have guys who come across more as professional broadcasters in their booths. In the case of the Cubs and Astros, I think this is because they’re major-market teams; in the case of the Brewers, it’s because they have Hall of Fame announcer Bob Uecker calling the plays, who’s one of the best around. While I’m obviously preferential towards Len and Bob—I think they provide a tasteful amount of home-team favoritism while still keeping things professional, although they are occasionally a bit dry—it’s surprisingly fun to give some of the other announcers a listen from time to time.
That’s not to say that they’re all good, and tonight’s Cubs-White Sox game provided a remarkably obvious example of how bad some announcers can be—especially when they’re frustrated with their team and overly invested in it to the point of becoming unprofessional. In this case, we have Ken “Hawk” Harrelson, who has called games for the South Siders for 20 seasons now. Most Sox fans I know tend to like Hawk’s unabashedly biased play-calling, which he often supplements with shameless cheerleading. This is all well and good, if that’s the kind of commentary you prefer. The flip side of that coin, though, is that he sometimes comes across as the worst kind of fan: the umpires are always out to get the Sox, the opposition sometimes makes lucky plays while the Sox are just downright talented, things like that. I’m actually fine with this; while I think I’d find it a little embarrassing if my team’s announcers were so partisan, Sox fans seem to like him and appreciate his style, and that’s cool with me. Just don’t flat-out lie about the game you’re calling, please.
I’ll try to set the stage: it’s the bottom of the 8th inning, with the White Sox winning 5-1. The Cubs’ first batter (Micah Hoffpauir) reaches base on an error. The next batter is Alfonso Soriano, who with 2 strikes in the count gets this pitch:
The Hawk is convinced that’s an obvious strike: “That ball had the plate. Had the outside edge of the corner.” The above picture is from the replay they showed, which Hawk was convinced reaffirmed his belief that it should’ve been a called third strike. His color man, Steve Stone (formerly the Cubs’ color commentator), tries to remain more diplomatic about it, but humors his partner just the same and agrees with him that it was probably a strike. Honestly, I think it’s one of those pitches that could’ve been called either way, but in the picture above I think it’s definitely more ball than strike. But whatever, the subjectivity of the umpire calling balls and strikes is part of the game, right?
On the next pitch, Soriano gets a base hit. The next two batters (Ryan Theriot and Milton Bradley) are retired, bringing the hot-streak-riding Derrek Lee to the plate with 2 outs, who proceeds to hit a 3-run homer. (Sub-rant: Why doesn’t MLB offer the ability to embed their videos?)
Next up is Geovany Soto, who also hits a home run, tying the game. Harrelson proceeds to lose it, repeatedly referring to the Sox giving up “4 unearned runs” to allow the Cubs to tie the game. For those of you keeping score, only the run scored by Hoffpauir was actually unearned, because he reached on an error. Soriano had a base hit, and Lee and Soto hit home runs, all of which are most decidedly earned runs on every score sheet except for Hawk’s. (I think he might’ve been trying to imply that Soriano reaching base was the result of an “error” on the home plate umpire, but he never clarified). So much for accurately reporting the events of the game. (Update: Apparently I am incorrect in my interpretation of how these runs should be scored; see the comments below for clarification.)
One of my biggest pet peeves with sports announcers in general is that they like to imply that if you changed the outcome of a single play, it is reasonable to assume that ensuing plays’ outcomes will remain unchanged. Hawk is happy to commit this commentator sin as well: he believes that had Soriano gotten out on what he felt should’ve been a called third strike, then Theriot and Bradley would’ve proceeded to get out in the same fashion as they actually did, and the inning would’ve been over without the Cubs scoring any runs, much less 4. As if them batting with an additional out, or with fewer runners on base, would be the same. Who’s to say the same pitches would’ve been thrown to them, with the same amount of success, their swings would’ve been the same, and all of the other little variables that contribute to how a single at-bat plays out would remain invariant? It’s nonsensical to think this way. (And in fact, I tend to believe that any time one endeavors to comment on what “would have” happened in almost any situation—sports or otherwise—they’re likely doing little more than demonstrating willful ignorance… Generalizations like “if that bomb had gone off, people would have died” aside, of course.)
It doesn’t quite end there. In the top of the 9th inning, with Paul Konerko batting, he gets thrown “the same pitch” (according to Harrelson), which is this time called a strike.
Hawk can’t take it: “Why is that a strike on him, but it wasn’t a strike on Soriano?” he asks. I think the proof is in the pictures, which incidentally were taken from the same replays he was watching while continuing to whine about the supposedly-biased umpiring.
In the bottom of the 9th, Soriano—the beneficiary of the non-strike call that got the Cubs’ rally started in the first place—knocked in the game-winning run, just to rub it in. “5 to 1 lead going into the bottom of the 8th inning… 4 unearned runs… and they pitch to Soriano, and he gets the base hit,” Hawk summarizes.
There’s nothing wrong with being passionate about your team, even in the case of an announcer. In fact, this is one of the things that makes baseball unique: each team has their own set of commentators, who bring their own perspective to the games, and can typically assume that their audience consists largely of that team’s fan base. But going overboard by trying to frame the events of the game you’re calling in an untruthful manner, and then whining about it on top of that, isn’t something I can imagine anybody enjoying. (Stone, I should say, remained silent every time Hawk mentioned the “4 unearned runs,” presumably not wanting to get into an on-air fight with his incensed partner.)
At least he faithfully reported the outcome of the game: Cubs 6, White Sox 5. Whether the runs were earned or not.
Status: In theaters (opened 6/5/09)
Directed By: Todd Phillips
Written By: Jon Lucas & Scott Moore
Cinematographer: Lawrence Sher
Starring: Bradley Cooper, Ed Helms, Zach Galifianakis, Justin Bartha
With 2003’s Old School, director Todd Phillips transformed Will Ferrell from an occasionally-funny SNL cast member who had found his way into some mid-level film roles (e.g., over-characterized villains in Austin Powers and Zoolander) into a major comedy star. I can only hope that with his newest film, The Hangover, Phillips has achieved a similar feat with Zach Galifianakis. While the comedian has had minor roles in a few films as of late (What Happens in Vegas…)—as well as being one of the comedic highlights of Largo—this is sure to be his breakout role, as the awkward, hirsute brother-in-law-to-be of Doug (Justin Bartha), whose bachelor party in Vegas leads to the hungover confusion of the film’s title which drives its plot.
The ringleader of the group is Phil (Bradley Cooper), who assumes the Vince Vaughn role of the man looking to escape his boring family life in favor of an excuse to party with “the guys.” They’re also joined by Stu (Ed Helms), who like Luke Wilson in the previous film is a pathetic cuckold with a crazy streak of his own. While the characters and premise here have a lot in common with Old School, though, the manner in which this movie proceeds is a bit less juvenile—though, admittedly, being less juvenile than Old School isn’t exactly a difficult achievement.
After setting up the what (bachelor party) and the where (Vegas) of the main characters’ ambitions, we skip over the how, finding them as they awaken the following day with no recollection of what transpired the night before. There are plenty of clues sprinkled throughout their hotel room (which looks like a scene from Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas) to get them started on reconstructing their memories of the night before—which becomes imperative when they realize they have no idea where Doug, the bachelor, ended up. The middle act is a cleverly twisted mystery story, with the three guys searching for clues and following leads in an attempt to figure out what happened. This is a fun structure, lending itself well to a lot of jokes of the shocking surprise variety.
As I’ve intimated, Zach Galifianakis largely steals the show. His character has some wonderfully absurd lines, which Galifianakis delivers in a hilariously deadpan manner. He’s not as much of a buffoon as my comparisons to Will Ferrell might make it sound like, instead going for a more subtle form of humor that is nevertheless just as pleasingly crass. Bradley Cooper is as capable a star these days as Luke Wilson is, and his character steers the plot ably. The movie is fearless in its pursuit of comedy, willing to go everywhere and anywhere for a laugh, from baby abuse to a little naked Chinese guy (Ken Jeong, who’s recognizable as the asshole doctor from Knocked Up). There’s also a hilarious cameo from Mike Tyson and some zany hijinks involving a stolen tiger that somehow manage to play a lot more actually-funny than might be expected.
There’s nothing terribly great about this movie, but it’s a solid comedy that knows what it’s going for and has the balls to do whatever it takes to get there. Typically in these types of films the story actually ends up getting in the way of the comedy, but that is pleasantly not the case here for the most part. On the other hand, this means that there is virtually no character development to speak of, and few revelations beyond those that are directly on the surface. I don’t necessarily think that’s a bad thing, though—the film makes no pretensions to doing anything other than putting its characters in outlandish situations and deriving laughs from them, and it does so pretty well.
I may be overstating one thing: Zach Galifianakis is actually only the second-best thing to appear in this movie. The first is Heather Graham’s boob. The Hangover is full of pleasant surprises.
Status: In theaters (opened 5/29/09)
Directed By: Sam Raimi
Written By: Sam Raimi & Ivan Raimi
Cinematographer: Peter Deming
Starring: Alison Lohman, Justin Long, Lorna Raver, Dileep Rao
Before he came to preside over a billion-dollar franchise, Sam Raimi cut his teeth making ultra-low-budget horror movies, gaining a huge cult following for the trilogy that defined his early career (The Evil Dead, Evil Dead II, and Army of Darkness). Now taking a respite from the Spider-Man trilogy that has defined his career as of late, he’s returned to his roots to revisit his classic style of scary-yet-funny horror with Drag Me to Hell.
Raimi learned early on—working with a virtually nonexistent budget—how to create suspense and repeatedly startle his audience without ever showing them an actual embodiment of the evil forces that torment his protagonists, and he’s returned to that style here, mixing his low-budget techniques with significantly higher production quality, with just as satisfying results. Here we have Christine Brown (Alison Lohman), a lovely and innocent farm girl who’s trying to make it in the big city. When she attempts to impress her boss at the bank where she works (David Paymer) by denying a creepy old woman (Lorna Raver) an extension on her mortgage, Christine becomes the subject of a curse that involves three days of torment before reaching a fiery conclusion, giving her a hard deadline on finding a way out of it. The demon that plagues Christine does so from the shadows, blowing through the leaves and tossing her around without ever showing its face (or whatever it is demons have in lieu of a face). Raimi finds several creative ways to keep this suspenseful and frightening, many of which are nostalgically reminiscent of the Evil Dead films; a lot of the early techniques described in Bruce Campbell’s hilariously telling autobiography If Chins Could Kill: Confessions of a B Movie Actor
Christine and her all-too-perfect boyfriend (Justin Long) patronize a seer (Dileep Rao), who of course just happens to be familiar with her particular type of curse and by coincidence has books on his shelf that describe how it works, giving him a good opportunity to explain it to her and the audience at the same time. It’s always important for a horror movie to make sure its audience is aware of the rules under which it will operate, and this is an effective and concise manner of doing so. Rao plays the role of the seer almost tongue-in-cheek, all but winking at the camera as he suggests various solutions to Christine’s dilemma. This is an extension of the tone of the film as a whole, which never takes itself too seriously, always quick to temper the heart palpitations it’s inspiring with a moment or two of levity.
Poor Christine is subjected to all manner of terror and humiliation, and Lohman is always in possession of our sympathies. Her pretty face is hit, clawed, vomited upon, drenched in all manner of bodily fluids, sprays blood of its own, is covered by bugs, and gets vomited upon some more. Sometimes the effects of these assaults seem real, and she ends up with her clothing and hair stained or cuts and scratches on her face. Other times they seem to be hallucinations the demon is capable of inflicting upon her, disappearing as quickly as they appeared, with everyone around her (particularly the mostly-oblivious boyfriend) unaware of what she’s just experienced.
The seer also just so happens to have a colleague (Adriana Barraza) who has experience with the particular demon in question, providing more opportunity to explain how things work before showing us in dramatic fashion. There’s a great, pivotal seance scene that goes through all of the film’s modes of excitement, from startle-scary to funny-scary to scary-scary (and then back to funny-scary again).
Drag Me to Hell isn’t a movie for every occasion or mood, but it’s one that fits a certain occasion and mood as well as any of this type of movie I’ve seen. This particular blend of horror and comedy just may have been invented by the Raimis—writer-director Sam and his brother and co-writer Ivan—in the first place, and they’ve clearly perfected it. The biggest disappointment might just be that Bruce Campbell isn’t in it.
Status: In theaters (opened 5/21/09)
Directed By: McG
Written By: John D. Brancato & Michael Ferris
Cinematographer: Shane Hurlbut
Starring: Christian Bale, Sam Worthington, Moon Bloodgood, Anton Yelchin
Terminator 2: Judgment Day was one of the great defining films of the 1990s. (I feel like I could write a book about the films of the 90s… and in fact, I intend to do so some day.) Not only was it an enthralling, thoroughly unique story, masterfully directed by James Cameron, with a strong, intricate screenplay that featured one of the great female leading roles there’s ever been (Linda Hamilton as Sarah Connor), but it also was a landmark in the development of computer-generated special effects and one of the films that served to both mark the arrival of and legitimize the era of CGI. It showcased career-defining roles for Arnold Schwarzenegger and Robert Patrick, while telling a compelling, timely and foreboding story.
Terminator Salvation is none of these things. It’s an unneeded and unnecessary addition to a franchise that has now gone twice as long as it ever should have. Salvation’s primary goal seems to be to capitalize on the cachet it inherits from Terminator 2, and not much else. There are shoehorned-in callbacks to the defining film of the series sprinkled throughout, from forced dialogue (”I’ll be back”) to music cues (the Guns N’ Roses song “You Could Be Mine” and a timely revisiting of the primary T2 theme by the great Danny Elfman). There’s also a climax that features a computer-rendered likeness of Arnold, a culminating battle in a factory, and a tacked-on concluding voiceover that reiterates T2’s theme that “there is no fate but what we make.”
Screenwriters John Brancato and Michael Ferris (who also wrote the uneven Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines) should listen to this advice. There’s only so much mileage that a sequel can get out of revisiting themes and beats from its predecessor before it actually has to pony up and do something unique on its own, and Terminator Salvation goes well beyond that point. There are no surprises here, no revelations, no insights into the well-known story of the previous movies. Put another way, if I wanted to see all of the cool things from Terminator 2, I’d just watch Terminator 2, where they were done better the first time. This new film’s fate should be in its own hands, but it chooses instead to defer to the movie it wishes it was and bring not much of its own to the table. (This article, which is a really insightful look into the development and production of Terminator Salvation, reveals that I’m probably being a bit unfair by laying the blame on the screenwriters here. In truth, at least with Terminator 3 they did put a new spin on the lore of the series, and it seems that was their intention here as well, but the director and star would have it otherwise.)
The real stars of this movie are Sam Worthington and Anton Yelchin, though its marketing would have you believe otherwise. Christian Bale, as John Connor, doesn’t have much to do but yell and grunt and generally overact in his typical style. Worthington plays Marcus Wright, a human/robot cyborg with an overly symbolic human heart, who initially doesn’t know that he’s a machine. (I would normally consider revealing this information to be a major spoiler, but the film’s trailers were happy to ruin the surprise of this plot point already.) Marcus teams up with Kyle Reese (Yelchin), who we know from the first film (played there by Michael Biehn) as the father of John Connor. Here he’s a 17-year-old boy with a mute sidekick (Jadagrace), who only hopes to become a member of the Resistance some day. There’s also Blair Williams (Moon Bloodgood), who is a member of the Resistance army that’s fighting against the all-present machines, led by Michael Ironside.
This all takes place in the post-apocalyptic future that we’d seen hinted at several times in the previous films. Everything is gray and black and bleak—the world here resembles what I imagined while reading Cormac McCarthy’s The Road
When it is revealed to Marcus that he’s really a machine, he decides to just go on as if he were a human, for reasons that aren’t made clear and don’t make much sense to begin with. Blair, because she’s a woman and thus dumb, falls for him anyway—I suppose you have to forcibly inject a potential love story into every movie for it to be considered commercially viable during these contentious summer months. Or maybe it’s just because they needed an excuse to have everybody chasing and/or running from someone or something, because that’s what the majority of the movie consists of. There isn’t really an antagonist to speak of, save for the nameless, faceless machines that frankly just aren’t that scary when they come by the dozens and have already destroyed much of the world anyway.
It is hard to deny, though, the fanciful sets and impressive special effects on display, and there is a decent amount of excitement that’s derived from the various chases and battles and explosions—they had a big budget for this production, and they used it. There’s a significant movie-going population that just wants to see shit get blown up, and they’ll be satisfied by this movie. (They’re also presumably the same group of people who are willing to take a guy who calls himself “McG” seriously.) If you’re capable of shutting off your brain and just enjoying a ride (perhaps even literally), Terminator Salvation could be kind of fun. If you want a story that makes sense and is somewhat compelling, though, not so much.
Status: In limited release (opens wide 5/29/09)
Directed By: Rian Johnson
Written By: Rian Johnson
Cinematographer: Steve Yedlin
Starring: Rachel Weisz, Adrien Brody, Mark Ruffalo, Rinko Kikuchi
In one sense, writer/director Rian Johnson’s sophomore effort The Brothers Bloom is a refreshing change of pace from recent con films like the Ocean’s series. It has its share of twists and surprises, but its focus is on its characters and their developing relationships, and this makes for a more engaging experience. In another sense, though, this doesn’t entirely work. For two-thirds of the movie it’s a con flick, with all of the betrayals and one-upsmanship that an audience would come to expect from the genre, but then its third act is devoted to a love story that, while emotionally satisfying, almost comes as a let-down because it doesn’t involve any big reveals or final grand twists. This is, again, refreshing in a way, but the change of pace is a little too awkward to totally sustain the interest level.
Taking a cue from Magnolia, the film opens with an introductory narration by Ricky Jay, who in addition to being an accomplished magician and master of sleight of hand also possesses one of the most enjoyably intriguing and soothing voices there is. He takes us through the childhood of the titular brothers, Stephen (Mark Ruffalo) and Bloom (Adrien Brody), where we see them learn the art of the con at a very young age, with the elder brother (Stephen) discovering his talent for writing stories that manipulate people’s behavior and play them into his schemes. This is fun, light-hearted, funny, and a fitting introduction to what will be a “joy ride”-type of movie.
When we catch up to the brothers as adults, we see that they are well-established as some of the best con men in the world. We also learn that Bloom has become disillusioned with their chosen life, in particular his frequent role as the love interest in Stephen’s scams. He longs to wake up next to somebody and know that they are there for him, not the character he’s playing in a con; he yearns to live “an unwritten life.” Brody and Ruffalo, while looking very physically dissimilar, are thoroughly convincing as brothers, and watching them play off of each other is one of this movie’s highlights. The other, of course, is the always-great Rachel Weisz, who plays Penelope Stamp, the rich heiress who will be the mark in what the brothers agree will be their final con.
The role of Penelope is a tricky one, but it allows ample room to exhibit Weisz’s considerable talents. She’s a shut-in with many eccentricities, and her character oscillates between naiveté and savviness: at times we think she’s just along for the ride, hoping to inject some adventure into her life without really knowing what she’s getting herself into, but at others we’re convinced she just might be the one doing the conning. Weisz keeps us guessing throughout the film, injecting her character with her typical overt charm, yes, but also with an underlying cleverness, too. Her performance alone is worth the price of admission.
These three are joined by a pyrotechnic expert, Bang Bang (Rinko Kikuchi), a mostly silent character who provides comic relief; she’s Johnson’s version of a Harpo Marx character, and her presence provides a lot of nice little touches peppered throughout the film.
Rian Johnson is, in fact, an expert at sprinkling clues and foreshadowing throughout his script in a very naturalistic manner. When one character comments at the start of the film that the problem with fake blood is that it doesn’t turn brown after a time, for example, we instantly know there will come a point later in the film where discolored blood stains will inform us of a major event. Setting up developments in this manner and then paying them off is very satisfying for an audience, and it’s pleasantly indicative of maturity on the part of the writer. Unfortunately there are other examples to the contrary, the one that I personally found most annoying being a character called Diamond Dog (Maximilian Schell), who is a rival of sorts of the brothers, but their history is never explained to us, or even hinted at. Diamond Dog simply shows up out of nowhere, and we see that Stephen hates him and Bloom fears him, but it’s left at that. He exists as a purely gimmick of a character, without any story or motivation of his own, and worse, without his relation to the protagonists ever being developed. I was fortunate enough to see this film at a screening where Johnson was present to do a Q&A afterwards, and during it he explained that even he didn’t know this character’s backstory; he conceived of him in terms of only what we’re shown on screen. This is one of the most telling examples I’ve seen of just how important a thorough sense of verisimilitude is to a film: while a character might not need his story to be completely told on screen, that story should at least exist, if even in an underdeveloped sense. The result of not doing this is not only a weaker character, but also a suspicion on the part of the audience: I found that it actually broke my suspension of disbelief to have to be subjected to scenes involving a completely unbelievable character occasionally interacting with the otherwise fully-developed ones. (This article on the topic of verisimilitude, which I was pointed to by Chas, is well worth reading in its own right, but it also has fitting relevance to The Brothers Bloom.)
Visually, the film is really pleasant to look at, thanks in large part to its wide and varied locations, from Prague to Mexico. There are titles that introduce several scenes, a little reminiscent of The Royal Tenenbaums, and they help maintain the playful overall mood of the film, serving as repeated visual reminders of how Stephen diagrams his cons, a practice we saw him develop as a child in the film’s introductory scenes. There are some shots where Johnson prefers to keep the action in the background or even outside of the frame completely, and whereas in his first film Brick I assumed that such techniques were at times used due to budget constraints, here it feels more natural and fitting to the style of the tale itself. I caught myself leaning forward in my seat on a couple of occasions, trying to peer around a corner to see what wasn’t being shown in the frame. Such instances can sometimes be annoying, but here I took them rather as a pleasant sign of my engagement in the story being told.
There are lots of little elements like this, all of which add up to The Brothers Bloom being a very fun movie. It takes you along for a ride that doesn’t let up until it’s time for the more character-driven love story to take over, and while this transition isn’t totally smooth and I think some audiences will feel that the end of the film drags a bit as a result (I count myself among such audiences), at the same time it’s a refreshing way to approach the con movie genre. It’s also an enjoyable chance to see a developing young writer-director. He’s not quite as polished as, say, a Martin McDonagh (In Bruges), but he’s definitely intriguing. Having as seasoned a cast as he does here surely doesn’t hurt, and the quality of their performances (particularly Rachel Weisz) helps to carry the film over the otherwise rough patches in Johnson’s script. He’s certainly a savvy filmmaker, though, who goes out of his way to connect with his audience (see, for example, the theatrical audio commentary he’s made available). The Brothers Bloom is not his masterpiece, but it is an enjoyable and interesting step along the way, and a pretty good movie in its own right, despite a few flaws.
Status: In theaters (opened 5/15/09)
Directed By: Ron Howard
Written By: David Koepp and Akiva Goldsman
Cinematographer: Salvatore Totino
Starring: Tom Hanks, Ewan McGregor, Ayelet Zurer, Stellan Skarsgard, Armin Mueller-Stahl
This will be a review of Angels & Demons. It’ll start by summarizing the movie’s plot, and then by telling you about how the film very overtly addresses science, religion, and the apparent conflict between the two. Then it’ll move on to talking about the film’s structure and execution. We’ll take a divergence to mention the actors’ performances, and then summarize my feelings on the movie and its screenplay.
This is very much like the experience of watching Ron Howard’s sequel to 2006’s The Da Vinci Code, based on Dan Brown’s novel
The Vatican enlists the help of everybody’s favorite symbologist, Robert Langdon (Tom Hanks), with a matter that ties these two events together. It seems that somebody claiming to be a modern-day member of the Illuminati has both kidnapped the front-runners for the position of Pope and stolen a large hunk of antimatter, and while the Catholic Cardinals are attempting to elect a new leader, he plans to kill the preferiti one by one and then to detonate the antimatter, annihilating Vatican City in the process. Langdon, of course, immediately recognizes the pattern that will be followed, and explains to both Vittoria and the audience how they will proceed to follow the trail, which they do, exactly as he’s described.
The lengthy second act of Angels & Demons consists of the protagonists running around Rome with various local law enforcement personnel (Italian police, Vatican police, and the Swiss Guard, the latter headed by Stellan Skarsgard). Langdon is really good at figuring out the clues that inform them of where to go next. So good, in fact, that once he gets started he’s never wrong; he says, “Oh, we must need to go here next,” and so they do, and that is the proper place for them to be in order to receive the next clue, just in the nick of time. On one hand this is pretty annoyingly implausible, and the audience doesn’t even have a chance to try to figure things out for themselves along with him. On the other hand it’s a welcome way to expedite the proceedings, acknowledging that the audience wouldn’t have nearly enough information to know how to figure out the clues anyway, so you might as well just come right out and tell them.
Dan Brown has a knack for taking real-world locations and bits of history and stringing them together into a fictional story that feels like it could be grounded in actual historical events, and that is on display here. I have no idea if the 17th-century Italian art, geography of Rome, or Vatican politics that play key parts in the unraveling of the movie’s mystery are made-up or not, but it did a good enough job convincing me that they might be real, and that’s really all that’s needed. When the script ventures outside of this comfort zone, however, its credibility begins to fall apart, particularly when dealing with the aforementioned antimatter contrivance. There are several very forced attempts to reconcile the void that exists between science and religion, punctuated with juvenile speeches on the subject. The worst of these is given by Ewan McGregor’s character, and it’s painful to watch such a good actor have to recite such terrible dialogue; he puts his heart into a ridiculously factitious speech about lightning, which apparently screenwriters David Koepp and Akiva Goldsman think is a mysterious phenomenon that science is “not mature enough” to explain (in contrast to religion, which we’re told has gained the wisdom to know enough to fear lightning’s awesome power…). Yeah.
If you can stomach such painful attempts at adding depth to what would be better off as a more superficial story, the clue-chasing is enjoyable enough, and Tom Hanks and Ayelet Zurer approach their leading roles with the right amount of playfulness to keep things light and engaging, while Stellan Skarsgard plays a heel with enough ambiguity to avoid becoming merely a caricature. There’s a major twist ending that comes about in surprisingly natural fashion, though it utilizes the now-clichéd device of replaying an earlier scene from a different perspective in order to forcibly (and somewhat unnecessarily) drive its point home. The twist is followed by a storytelling gimmick that’s a recycled version of the “cut from the gymnastics team” gag that Koepp previously employed in his Lost World screenplay (with gymnastics ability swapped out for helicopter piloting talent in this case). It works here, but the cheap writing trick is annoying, especially since it’s not the first time the same writer has used it.
I fear, though, that I’ve made this movie sound a lot worse than it is. While its screenplay is gimmicky, its production is polished and its execution is more or less solid. It’s a movie that’s most enjoyable if you attempt to believe it when it tries to convince you that it’s smart, rather than expecting all of its explanations to make sense and satisfy any sort of genuine intellectual curiosity. There’s a lot of information revealed along the way, though nothing that most reasonable adults would mistake for authentic disclosures of fact, but it does serve to drive a compelling story. Employing talented actors throughout helps the film to overcome its sometimes-cheesy dialogue, and the deeply-rooted historical basis of its central mystery likewise is able to overshadow some ill-conceived philosophical diversions. And hey, if nothing else, that antimatter serves yet another purpose that I haven’t yet mentioned: providing an excuse to show off what state-of-the-art computer graphics can do when given a big enough budget. Just don’t try to fully understand them, because after all, CGI is still an immature field, so it can probably only be explained by God.
Status: In limited release (opened 4/24/09)
Directed By: James Toback
Written By: James Toback
Cinematographer: Larry McConkey
Starring: Mike Tyson
Growing up in the 80s, Mike Tyson was a mythical figure. Everybody knew who he was, and everybody followed his career: becoming the youngest boxer to hold the unified heavyweight title, his numerous first-round knockouts, his eccentric personality. He was also the star and subject of one of the early iconic Nintendo games, which only increased his mystique among people in my age group.
Tyson is the story of the former champ’s life, from growing up in Brooklyn to winning and then losing the title, as told by the man himself. I heard an interview with director James Toback on Ron and Fez where he repeatedly compared his on-camera interviews with Tyson to therapy sessions, and the effect is certainly there: seated on a couch, Tyson opens up completely for the camera, sharing with the audience several revealing monologues that are completely unencumbered by any sense of self-censorship.
The manner in which he relates his story is at least as interesting as the story itself. Tyson’s odd, lisp-enhanced speech pattern borders on surreal at times, particularly when he flexes his surprisingly impressive vocabulary—which he continually balances with mispronounced and invented words. His defining characteristic, though, is his frankness; Mike Tyson is a man who doesn’t care what anybody else thinks and isn’t afraid to let them all know it. He speaks openly about his romantic relationships: the time he contracted gonorrhea before a title fight, his inability to remain faithful (which he refers to as “extracurricular activities”). This has particularly interesting implications when his alleged rape of Desiree Washington is addressed, as to this day he maintains his innocence, and we’re left with no reason to doubt him—especially when he implies, in not exactly discreet terms, that he has raped other women before, just not her.
Aside from the tabloid topics, we also get Tyson’s take on his professional career, with a lot of engaging revelations along the way. Particularly telling is when “Iron Mike” repeatedly becomes choked up while discussing his mentor and father figure, Cus D’Amato, who died before he got a chance to see his protégé become world champion. The contrast between the tough street kid who doesn’t want to allow his emotions to come out and the still-maturing adult who’s baring his soul is fascinating. This theme permeates the film, in fact, with Tyson often playing the role of tragic figure, allowing us to see through the chinks in his macho armor to the humanity underneath.
Toback’s filmmaking style is best when it stays out of the way of his subject. There are no interviews of anybody other than Tyson, and yet, due to the man’s inability to ever restrain himself from saying exactly what’s on his mind, we are told more than one side of every story. Toback gets a bit too clever for his own good, though, sometimes showing overlapping interview segments on screen simultaneously in growing and shrinking boxes, and these sequences feel more like somebody playing around with his editing software to see what it can do than a director trying to allow his subject to tell his own story. This technique is thankfully only used occasionally, though I wish it weren’t present at all, as I feel that all it does is get in the way of the documentary’s narrative. It’s a lapse in judgment—infrequent as it occurs—to think that anything other than putting Tyson on screen and allowing him to speak is needed in order to hold the audience’s attention.
Perhaps the most revelatory sequence—as well as the best-edited—is when Tyson describes his fateful WBA title bout with Evander Holyfield, which famously ended when Tyson bit off his opponent’s ear. His take on the fight, while not entirely vindicating, is certainly an interesting exercise in perspective, and Toback’s style of syncing the proper footage from the fight itself with Tyon’s narration serves to demonstrate what led to the bizarre outcome in a way that is much more empathetic than I would’ve ever expected.
Coming into this documentary, I knew a lot of Tyson’s story, having always been fascinated by him. Despite not being much of a boxing fan, I find that I always stop when I discover a Tyson fight while flipping through channels. I’ve watched ESPN Classic shows about him, I’ve read exposés in Playboy exploring his relationship with D’Amato, but never have I seen anything as complete or, more importantly, as personal as the story that is told here. Mike Tyson is an engaging figure, shown here in a shockingly candid manner. His monologues range from touching and borderline tear-inducing to completely hilarious, and everything in between. The one consistency is that he is never boring or uninteresting, and Tyson is a unique opportunity to see him tell his own story, completely.
Since I live on the west coast, I only rarely get to watch baseball games live. My team, the Chicago Cubs, plays most of their games at either 1:20pm or 7:05pm Central, and I’m rarely home from work in time to catch the beginning of even the later-starting games. I don’t really mind this, because watching on DVR delay means I can skip through commercials, and I’m typically busy enough at work that not spoiling the score (or outcome, in the case of earlier games) isn’t too difficult (although sometimes, when the sky is clear, I’ll listen to a day game on XM while at work, but that’s a different situation). The ideal goal is to have just the right amount of buffer built up so that you catch up to real time in the bottom of the ninth inning, having missed all of the commercials but seeing the game end live. I’m almost always a bit off from that, though, as I don’t usually begin watching a game until a couple of hours after it’s started.
Because of my viewing schedule, and my desire to remain ignorant of anything that’s happening with a particular game I’m going to watch until I’ve seen it for myself, I have my DirecTV +HD DVR set to record every Cubs game from the time it starts until 3 hours after it’s scheduled to end (that’s the max amount of additional recording time for a particular program that the software offers). This gives an allowance for rain delays and/or extra-innings games. Since I watch games every day, the wasted disk space on the DVR isn’t much of a problem—I just delete each game after I’ve finished watching it (which is usually while it’s still recording, due to the extra 3-hour record time).
This sounds like it’d be a good situation for someone like me, and it is, for the most part. The problem with it, though, is that it relies on heavy use of the DirecTV DVR software, which I have now decided is definitely the single worst piece of software I’ve ever had to use on a regular basis. Last year it made me miss Zambrano’s no-hitter, and while there hasn’t been anything quite that dire yet this year, it has nonetheless found other ways to annoy the ever-loving shit out of me on a way-too-frequent basis.
The most recent example involves the way DirecTV tries to be way too clever with their guide: despite the fact that they dedicate an entire channel—two, actually, for games that are available in both standard-definition and HD—to a game for a whole day, for some reason when the game actually ends they update their guide information so that the receiver/DVR knows the game is over. This results in the guide deciding that the channel is now devoted to a different, upcoming game, which, despite the fact that I have the MLB Extra Innings package and would be able to watch when it’s actually on, I am not yet authorized to receive. The result of this is that when I’m tuned to that channel—or in my case, watching DVR-delayed content from earlier on that channel—the DirecTV DVR decides that I am not authorized to watch it, and finds it necessary to repeatedly inform me of this… while I’m still watching the game.
This is what last Friday night’s Cubs-Brewers game looked like for me during the final few innings (click to enlarge)
So I get this annoying box popping up, occupying over a quarter of the screen, at random intervals and for seemingly-random lengths of time… and it doesn’t respond to my remote’s “exit” button. I can select the “More Info” box, but all that does is obscure the screen even more, until I hit “exit,” at which point the info box disappears for a few seconds before popping up again. This happens from a point shortly after the game ends (I think it’s a half hour) until I’m done watching it.
An illustrative timeline might clarify, if my description has been confusing at all:
What’s really odd is that this doesn’t always happen. From my casual observations, it seems to only come up when I’m more than a certain amount of time behind real time. For example, call the difference in time between when the game starts and when I being watching it “interval A,” and the difference in time between when it ends and when the guide data changes “interval B.” I think that if interval A is greater than interval B, then at “interval B” time after the end of the game, the “To order this program now…” box will begin displaying on the screen. (The corresponding guide data change would be, in this instance, from “Cubs @ Brewers [HD]” to “Upcoming: Cardinals at Reds.”)
The one solution I’ve found is as follows: once the box starts being displayed, I have to stop watching the game and change the channel to something normal (i.e., not part of a sports package). I then have to stop the recording, and then resume watching the recorded game. I’m always a little nervous to do this, though, because I’m not positive that my theory of what causes this to happen is correct, and I don’t want to stop the recording only to find that I’ve caused myself to miss the end of the game. And it doesn’t always do the trick, anyway. At any rate, it’s really not something I should have to contend with in the first place, and the fact that it’s just the result of sloppy programming on DirecTV’s part only makes it that much more annoying when I do.
