The Greatest Art Heist in History...

...yet some of the most boring art work in contemporary one-sheets.

Holy Cow!!

Since it was announced that visionary mastermind/poet/bringer-of-all-things-good Alfonso Cuaron would be following up the masterful Children of Men with a science fiction lost in space yarn entitled Gravity, there was a palpable rush of adrenaline felt in the cinematic community.  The casting of Sandra Bullock and George Clooney added star luster, but the real treat was always going to be the magic that Cuaron would bring to his 3-D space tale.  It was a disappointment to learn that the film was pushed back a year after brief murmurs it would make its debut in the midst of last falls awards season.  Whatever the wait, and whatever the hype, this already demands to be a must see.  It is said that the film will open with a bravura 17-minute single take opening shot.  Heady, confounding, and potentially genius!  The synopsis is eerily simple:

"Astronauts attempt to return to earth after debris crashes into their space shuttle, leaving them drifting alone in space." 

Here's a first reaction of a someone who alleges to have seen an early cut of Gravity, courtesy of AICN:

This is not just next level shit, this is several levels ahead of next level shit, & quite possibly the highest level shit you could possibly make. This is like if Avatar had been released in 1927 a week after The Jazz Singer. People won’t know how to comprehend what they are seeing. In short, Gravity genuinely makes you feel like you have been to space. It really, really does. And guess what? It’s beautiful, and awe-inspiring, and profound (and a little scary too), everything you thought it would be since you first thought about going to space when you were a kid. The movie exploits dreams it knows every sentient being has had, using the best special effects I have personally ever seen. I honestly don’t know how you could enhance a cinematic experience more. I kept waiting for a cameo from the Tupac hologram.  However, some people might end up saying that Gravity ends up being too light on story & is just an expensive space roller coaster ride, ‘Space Mountain: The Movie’ if you will. But those people would be wrong, stupid & ungrateful. Gravity is an important & subtle character study wrapped up in the guise of the most technologically advanced film of the new millennium… To me the film is about apathy and isolation. It’s about people today not knowing why they should be excited about living but only knowing they don’t want to die. It’s about looking at your own insignificance in the universe (or on Earth, or at your job, or at your school, etc.) & becoming empowered by it instead of defeated. And most of all, it’s about seeing what it would be like to float through space like an astronaut (spoiler: it’s fun).

The Ides of March

The inside political story The Ides of March pulses with ideas and terse tension, and neatly comes packaged as the fourth feature to be directed by uber-Hollywood prince George Clooney.  Based on the play Farragut North, penned by Beau Willimon, who co-wrote the screenplay with Clooney and Grant Heslov, the film is set and attuned to the behind the scenes machinations of an impending Ohio primary and it's two prolific Democratic hopefuls.  With its starry cast and overly ripe, 24-hour news-primped setting, the stakes are high, and the promise and potential are met with a swift intelligence and sparkling dialogue, and the stage is set for a serious-minded indictment of modern politicizing and all the backstabbing and compromise that comes, one that taint even the purest values, as asserts the film, and well, reality.  That aching cynicism of modern campaigning is ripe for scrutiny, and respectably mounted, but it becomes apparent fairly quickly in The Ides of March that all its good intentions are mere window dressing; what's missing is the potent meatiness in a story of good men caught up in bad politics.  What's left is a group of well trained, groomed and versed collection of actors truly acting the hell out of their respective parts, pointed speeches and all.

The film starts, rather amusingly and tellingly false, as a young man takes to the pulpit.  He's one of the top aides to presidential hopeful and current governor Mike Morris (George Clooney), a smart, idealistic young pup with a gift for spin, and gone adrift after long ago drinking the governor's Kool-Aid-- his name is Stephen Myers (Ryan Gosling.)  What Ides gets right very early on is the unflinching, almost disarming connection between campaigners and the press, and the spinning of values and facts are mere side notes-- winning is only the option, everything else is crap, and it matters little the scruples needed to get there.  There's an early sequence that's almost chilling in its nonchalance between Stephen, Morris' head aide Paul Zara (Philip Seymour Hoffman), and the Maureen Dowd-like columnist, played with feverish and intimating liberal flirtiness by Marisa Tomei; over drinks the three dance to clever words that are never quite on nor off the record, that strike personal, professional, and utterly savage.  The trick is, that no one has the higher ground at that stage, as both parties-- the Morris men and the journalist are too dependent on one another-- that is until someone is thrown under the bus.  This is after all, a film that gathers its title from Julius Caesar.

It turns out to be two temptations that may or may not send Stephen left to dust.  The first comes with an ominous invitation to join the rival Democratic campaign, led by the oppositions behind the scenes guy Tom Duffy (Paul Giamatti.)  The second comes from the flirty advances of a young intern named Molly (Evan Rachel Wood), who's innocence is squashed nearly completely in her first scene...surely Stephen's seen Mildred Pierce.  Whatever the case or easy outs to explore the devil and angel shoulder dynamics The Ides of March wants to tell, it's basically a fairly simple story of one man's thorny experiences of playing with fire, and corrupting power of politics, no matter how strong ones ideals might be at the beginning.  And so it becomes a sort of mixed blessing that the Stephen is played by Gosling, a triumphant actor, whose radiance and charm are so clear, even in the slimiest or least expressive manners, but the troubling factor is that he shades such a knowing intelligence and such a graceful knack for spin in Stephen, that it's hard to quite buy him as an aw-shucks dupe.  And at the same time, his arc from idealist to shark reads too incidental to be genuine.  Yet it's that same intelligence and charm that keeps the movie going as far as it does, as with his generous rapport with the rest of the ensemble; the dance of morality with Hoffman (who's the closest the film has to a moral center), or his tryst with Wood (the closest the film has to an emotional center.)

It's the predictable nature of The Ides of March that ultimately makes the film run out of gas, for a such a well-packaged potboiler, it takes the easy way out, and denounces hard realism for tired and torn-from-the-headlines cliches.  For what's missing is a thought-provoking discussion of the good and bad compass that sadly makes up our modern political process, or an intellectual indictment of made in the media political superstars.  Instead, the film somewhat costs of post-Obama age of disillusionment of the liberal promise and showcases seemingly noble men acting a fool; the likeability of any it's characters comes fairly exclusively from the likeability and charisma of its attractive stars, not the jaded temperament of their behavior.

The film closes with a singular and noteworthy shot, not dissimilar to the one that opened the film; it feels potent because Gosling invests so much into it.  And while it's doesn't quite feel like the perfect fit it should, there's a small dash of gravitas and and (perhaps unearned) potency in the slimy revenge morality paying off.  Perhaps nothing really ever changed in Stephen, and perhaps that's the point of the tale, whatever the case, the actorly range is nearly enough to save the self-serious Ides, but not quite.  B-

The Descendants Trailer

The first trailer to Alexander Payne's latest film starring George Clooney.  On first glance, it seems a bit generic for a filmmaker of Payne's infinite gifts, but hopefully this is just one of those hard-to-peg-down type of films.  Coincidentally, this is his first film that Payne didn't co-write with his longtime writing partner Jim Taylor; Payne wrote the screenplay with Nat Faxon and Jim Rash, based on the novel by Kaui Hart Hemmings.

The Descendants

First imagery of Alexander Payne's latest film; his first since his Oscar-winning Sideways (2004).  Sigh, I loathe that I must wait so long for follow-up projects from the filmmakers I admire.

Up in the Air

It's sometimes hard to form a natural true opinion of a film that seems to be radiating buzz and love from film critics, awards organizations, and other movie enthusiasts. Such is a predicament I experienced recently with Precious, which I had heard nothing better rave hyperbole all the way since January, but I loved the film anyway. On the other hand that was the case with An Education too, and I didn't quite love that one. Here's Up in the Air, which since September and its debuts at the Toronto Film Festival, where all the bloggers and critics and their ilk wrote up a storm about Jason Reitman's third film, and then came the early awards, and more reviews. And while the film is still fresh as a daisy in my brain, I think I'm ready to proclaim in the real deal. I've been rooting for Reitman since his debut film Thank You For Smoking, onto pure joy with Juno, and here is his most mature and refined piece of work. There's comedy, a little bit of romance, social commentary at hand, but a sign of a true humanist working in Hollywood. He may be a softie, but his films have resonance, and power.

Up in the Air, I think, packs more a punch. It stars George Clooney as Ryan Bingham. Bingham is the go-to-guy for cowardly corporate bosses to fire their employees. So it's a glowing time for Bingham in todays America. He travels across the country, living in a suitcase, free from regular human commitments, just as Bingham prefers. On the side he's also a motivational speaker, extolling the dangers of a life full of personal attachments. "We're sharks," he states, "moving is living." He digs the flying, the airline miles, gold star rental car and hotel treatment (his mission is to get ten million frequent flyer miles, just because he'd only be the seventh person on the planet to do so.) It's probably the perfect role for Clooney, as it plays to his own persona of lone bachelor, and he oozes charm in the rare movie star breed that's lacking so much in today's cinema climate. In other words, Ryan Bingham probably would not be a very a likeable character played by anyone else, but it's also an accomplishment that Clooney, though seemingly never breaking a sweet, makes him not only likeable, but sympathetic.

His world is starting to change however, with the arrival of Natalie Keener (Anna Kendrick), a bright and eager Cornell graduate with innovative ways of changing the rule of things and Bingham's cozey airtime miles. Instead of firing people in person, let's do it over the internet via webcam. She is then opted to be protegue to Bingham. The dynamic of the film changes, but in a revolutory way, and lots of that is based on the rapport between Clooney and Keener-- like oil and vingear mostly. Kendrick (previously of Camp, Rocket Science, and Twilight) proves a more than capable foil, and puts a fresh spin on her line delieveries. Again not the most likeable character in concept, but seeing Kendrick unravel and become more aware of the process of ruining peoples lives deepens the film; making it not always the light hearted comedy that advertising might suggest.

The other woman that challenges Bingham is Alex (Vera Farmiga), a female counterpart whom he meets and flirts while mingling at an airport bar. They are both obsessed and turned on by the casual up-in-the-air lifestyle..."moving is living." Foreplay basically consists of bragging about platinum cards and the best rental car agencies. The game changer is that Bingham slowly starts to fall for Alex. It's the most traditionally genre part of the film, but never falls into cliche, because the chemistry between Clooney and Farmiga is soooooo good. The pitter patter dialouge reminded me of classic screwball comedies of the 1940s.

The great thing about Up in the Air, and the quality that makes me confident that Reitman as forminable director is that the film never loses sight of its entertainment value, of it's lightness or comedy, but that it bounces back up into a higher pantheon of filmmaking because it's set in backdrop all too familiar to contemporary America. People are losing their jobs, and it takes a bold filmmaker to put on display a serious downer issue, and yet still make a very populist, entertaining film about the subject. The context is there and as a narrative Up in the Air feels more than anything else I've seen this a total 2009 time capsule film; this is where we are right now. The scenes where Clooney is firing people (and many of the victims are portrayed by real life laid-off workers) is just a poignant and moving and uncomfortable as the door stop scenes in The Messenger, another 2009 gem of timely subject matter.

So while my natural opinion might sound like hyperbole somewhat, I did naturally dig this film. A-