Cinema Shame- 2012 Edition

As I start to get myself together-- with the full realization that we are already mid-way through the first half of January 2013-- that annual twitchy anxiety yet again rears its ugly head as I formulate the last year of the filmmaking.  The truncated awards season is not helping much, typically there's another week or two to go before Oscar nominations.  Blerg.  I start my annual kvetching, first with something I sure about-- what didn't work.  I'll put aside easy targets that yielded uncomfortable viewing for me this past year-- the like of Wrath of the Titans, Dark Shadows, The Odd Life of Timothy Green, What to Expect When You're Expecting, as well, they all sucked, and further more why venture into half witted commentary on subject not nearly at worthy of it, or of items no one their right minds remember much of anyway.

CLOUD ATLAS (The Waschowskis, Tom Tykwer)- The OMG of worst of filmmaking in 2012 comes from three filmmakers, each of whom perhaps past their prime or novelty, a world class ensemble of movie stars and journeymen, and spans thousands of years in telling six disparate, but interconnected tales of, well something I'm sure.  There's a wealth of ambition, pyrotechnics, prosthetics, and pseudo gravitas, but the film a convoluted, pretentious mind fuck is also cold and insufferable, uneven to to point to be grandly ridiculous and long enough to arouse enough shuffling in ones seat to the point of dehydration and, I'm sure, a litmus of health of risks.  Perhaps that's being mean, but Cloud Atlas, with all its metaphysical daydreaming, is a film that yearns and believes its about everything, and in truth, it's about nothing at all except the brief novelty of a catching a game and rotating chess game of actors dive further into a needless rabbit hole that's head scratching and alternately alienating, confusing, and a bit racist.  Further more, the six strands of inter-connected gobbledygook are less bewitching separately making a product that cannot stand on the sum of it's parts because there's sparsely little their to begin with. 

COSMOPOLIS (David Croenberg)- Imagine spending two hours with the most deathly boring, abhorrent slice of humanity in the back of a limousine in an endless and fatiguing quest to, get this- get a haircut.  That specimen belongs to Robert Pattinson, in an effort for the Teen Beat incarnate of modern vampire romanticism to grow, or perhaps atone, as an actor.  Croenberg's films are always superbly crafted, and while Cosmopolis is certainly ambitious in it's thematic melding of the end of the world foreshadowing with Occupy-like hysteria, the material is so drab, stagey, and moribund that it becomes a draining couple of hours spent in the company of pseudo-intellectual types spewing needless nonsense in the man of art.  Pattinson, it appears, has further atoning to do-- getting a prostate exam in an art film does not equate a great artist.

"THE GRETA GERWIG DOUBLE FEATURE FROM HELL"- Greta Gerwig, the mumblecore romantic heroine, discovered after an appropriately praised performance in the misbegotten Noah Boambach dramedy Greenberg came off age in two headlining 2012 indie comedies, and both were nearly unwatchable.  The first was Whit Stillman's alien and oddly scoped anti-feminist curveball Damsels in Distress, and the second, the stifled and second rate Woody Allen carnival of neurosis in Lola Versus.  Coincidentally, Gerwig was also featured in To Rome With Love-- read below.  I still find myself interested in this unlikely movie star, whose slanted off-kilter line readings and cadences are certainly different and hopefully a right fit for some filmmaker, but this was not the coming out party for her this year.

HITCHCOCK (Sasha Gervasi)- The gloves deserve to come off so to speak in this ungracious, ever looking for a tone film that teases with early-Hollywood allure with insight into the making of Psycho and the genius behind it.  Something for the movie geeks to pine at, and at first, I was willing to take the bait, until I realized what a silly, barely together slight of hand truly on hand from director Sasha Gervasi, and nagging, winking portrait by Anthony Hopkins.  Replacing the fun, gentile ride with behind the scenes dirt on the making of one of the most savory pieces of filmmaking of time, with a dull scenes from a marriage burst the cinematic bubble, and dared to turn a subject so fascinating and gleefully alive into something so downtrodden and slow.  Hitchcock at once makes a fool of its subjects and moreso of it's actors-- especially Helen Mirren, the sprightliest of Dames reduced to second hand material and a particularly dull backstory, likely juiced just to woo her in the first place.  What's left is not fun, more so, it's quite deadly.

TO ROME WITH LOVE (Woody Allen)- The reasons for returning to the yearly ritual of a Woody Allen film are partly because the romanticism of his necessary work (Annie Hall, Manhattan, Hannah & Her Sisters, The Purple Rose of Cairo) is enough to take part-- Allen's very best will eternally play in a wonderful loop in head.  Also, even in the recent hit and miss, keep going run of his modern work, there's a surprise to behold every so often in the sea of Curse of the Jade Scorpion missteps.  Last years Midnight in Paris holds that to be true, as does the small pleasures of trifles like Vicky Cristina Barcelona and Match Point.  To Rome With Love is an epic blunder, however, a half-assed Euro bit of cheese, with neither any filling nor topping.  The boring and trite unconnected stories that make up Allen's Italian vacation harvest neither wit nor pleasure, but instead bore with barely cobbled together ruminations of celebrity, romance, sex and opera singing in the shower?- whatever-ness.  Any of which are things Allen has done better thousands of times, and without any bombast, nor an exceeding running time-- okay, it's barely a two hour film, but it felt like ten dull hours in half-wit Allen mode.  The briefest respite comes from Judy Davis, whose heavenly line readings offer the solace in one of Allen's worst.

And a special award to:

LEE DANIELS, writer and director of THE PAPERBOY
Cast aside after it's embarrassing showing at this years Cannes Film Festival, and cemented as the novelty freak show where Nicole Kidman pees on Zac Efron, The Paperboy-- despite some top talent involved including Matthew McConaughey (a blip on his unmatched year), John Cusack, Macy Gray and Nicole Kidman, to one who almost manages to get ahead of this stinking trainwreck-- this thundering piece of cinematic shame begs the question on which may be the worst follow-up in history to an Oscar-winning success story.  Daniels rightfully earned praise for Precious, but The Paperboy, with it's rote and pretentious style, flow and dirty energy may prove a top contender for that prize.  Ugly, unsubtle, and only wannabe-gritty, The Paperboy was handily the trashiest piece of filmmaking of 2012, but decorated in the veneer of laudable art project.  Daniels wastes the abundant talents of his cast and crew, and the time of the poor suckers spent in the auditorium of this filth.

Best Make-up and Hairstyling

The shortlist for what will be considered for the Best Make-up and Hairstyling Academy Award:

• Hitchock
• The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey
• Les Miserables
• Lincoln
• Looper
• Men in Black 3
• Snow White & the Huntsman

Snubbed: The Impossible, Holy Motors

Hitchcock

DISCLAIMER:  In the interest of full disclosure, pertinent in exploring a feature film revolving around Alfred Hitchcock, it should be stated on the record the Master of Suspense is one of my personal favorites.  At an early age, I felt a shiver and gleeful revelry toward his filmmaking, his signatures, his style.  For even at an early age, whether consciously or not, I was acutely aware of watching a Hitchcock film-- his personal authorship of his films that permeated across every frame, every scene, every little nuance and gesture.  As I'm sure is the case with many other budding cinephiles, Hitchcock is an easy in for the pure rapture of filmmaking, one so that if caught at a young and impressionable age will likely remain strong for life.  Even without being aware of the technician, the craft or the artistry, there's a certain hold that can come under way even in his most seemingly benign efforts.  One that evaluated and soaked through the tides of time become deeper and penetrable images forever soaked into memory.  With this being said, I enter a film like Hitchcock with some resolve that may make it nearly impossible to sever the profound personal effect his filmmaking took hold of me.  In the nature and style that Hitchcock himself was a witty self promoter and flourished his many films with encoded personal desires, I felt it necessary to get that off my chest.

Speaking of witty self promotion, Sacha Gervasi's Hitchcock opens with a clever nod introducing his to our tale of intrigue.  Based on the book, "Alfred Hitchcock and the Making of Psycho," by Stephen Rebello, the film chronicles the turbulent making of the grand slasher film that in more ways than can ever be counted (or dissected by ninety-eight minutes of celluloid) changed the face of popular movie making.  As the opening title cues, creating an aura that's fitfully awesome as it is expected, the tone is nearly established.  This is going to a bouncy, fluffy trifle providing a broad assessment of the man, his genius, his process and his furtive, if slightly brittle, relationship with his wife and confidant, Alma Reville.  Gervasi achieves a playful inventiveness and a nicely pre-packaged sense of fun in recreating Psycho, through it's rough venture as an idea to the finished product to his uncanny release pattern.  There will likely be a rousing chant and firmly planted smile on the faces of the Hitchcock and Psycho devoted as Hitchcock (Anthony Hopkins) is pitching his latest-- a grisly, edgy and maddeningly violent take on the Ed Gein murders-- to the befuddled Paramount executives who really just want another North by Northwest, as well as the censors board (Psycho was the first film to feature a toilet, and that's a big deal), who rigidly proclaim no such film will ever see the light of day. 

There's certain documented truth to the circumstances. Hitchcock was at the height of his career at the dawn of Psycho, and the film was a notoriously tough sell, enough that the financing and the making of the film were ultra-indie to his standards.  The fun occurs really on the elements of which anyone jazzed about Hitchcock will likely already know by heart.  The casting of Janet Leigh (played with commanding fragility by a nearly channeling Scarlett Johansson) and Anthony Perkins (James D'Arcy), the shooting of the infamous shower scene, the inventive publicity show orchestrated by Hitch as Paramount was trying to dump a potential disaster.  This stuff is likely film geek porn, and lots of smiles are surely in store.  Yet it's also incredibly shallow, and about as revelatory as a behind the scenes extra on a Psycho DVD.  Part of the problem lies in the overly broad stylization that Gervasi, the director of the charmingly nimble documentary Anvil! The Story of Anvil making his feature debut, maintains-- it's just right of cartoon, but just left of reality.  It starts with Hopkins himself, who is quite good at miming the rotund filmmaker's famous figure and charms with the droll speak, but it's a desperate crowd pleaser's Hitchcock, one with little attempt at really exploring a humanity inside the legacy.  That is until it isn't.

The making of Psycho is nearly put aside to concentrate in the troubling mid section of the private life of Hitch and Alma (Helen Mirren.)  Either cobbled together by conjecture, fabrication, disparate threads of reality, of whatever, it derails the fun, superficial momentum built up at the beginning.  Turing the tale into a grand love story provides lots of nice moments for the esteemed and highly pedigreed actors to do good work, but has a stained glow of nearly being a side attraction.  We want to see Psycho.  Gervasi and screenwriter John J. McLaughlin (Black Swan) do a greater disservice in brief asides that try to force Hitchcock to explore his own inner demons, especially in hokey dream sequences where Ed Gein is his analyst.  Light and peppery showbiz fun is fine, but the pot appears overcooked with Hitchcock, draining it of its high calorie art house junk food allure.  Mirren, to be fair, is compelling and devours her dialogue (a mixed bag that alternates between clever and ill-advised) with an aplomb that floats somewhere between scene-stealing, bloated histrionics, and perfectly natural.  And while historians can dissect the truth to their relationship-- Alma is believed to have deeply influenced and shaped the work of his films-- there's an awkwardness to the clunky execution and how it fits into the overall world of Hitchcock.

Yet this may be the prickliness of the inner Hitchcock loyalist coming out, as a fan who relishes the world inside and out of one of the best films every made, but also wants to keep a certain distance and keep the experience sacred.  The breeziness of the best patches of Hitchcock, in tune with the drippy frothiness of last years My Week With Marilyn, play with an ease that may make for a great night at the movies.  The inside-Hitchcock gossip (for instance, his distaste for Vera Miles, played by Jessica Biel, who became pregnant shortly before the filming of Vertigo, whom Hitchcock primed great things for, or the back and forth fight over the weather the shower sequence should be accompanied to music), and old-school Hollywood backdrop are catnip for staging engagingly nostalgic cinema.  But there's a play to the rafters approach that sometimes comes closer to camp than mere homage, and the purists at heart might to taken out at these things, while the uninitiated likely won't even be a part of the joke.  That's the mixed bag of Hitchcock.

What does rouse rivetingly well is the joyful, and likely untrue, moment of Psycho being screened for the first time, as a seemingly nervous Hitchcock peers onto the crowd as the famous shower scene is about to play.  The buoyancy of Hopkins humming along to the famous shrieks is the most heartfelt moment in the picture.  C

Good Evening

There's been something of an Alfred Hitchcock renaissance as of late.  You could see it back in August, when the once-per-decade poll by Sight and Sound cited Vertigo as the best film as all time, unseating reigning champ Citizen Kane.  Further more by the HBO movie The Girl, which charted the relationship between Hitch and model-turned-actress\muse Tippi Hedren, and finally by the last minute decision by Fox Searchlight Pictures to unleash the film Hitchcock, featuring Anthony Hopkins as the rotund auteur, for 2012 awards consideration.  Just taking a look at the top banner, I'm certainly in a degree of glee by the recent saturation of interest in the Master of Suspense.  Personally speaking, he was the first filmmaker that piqued my cinematic spark.  Not merely by accident, as his approach and mastery and innovation of the medium is easy to admire, easy to spot and hard not to get spellbound by.  The figure behind the magic has long been something far more allusive, and as The Girl, and certainly Hitchcock (which earned decent reviews as the opener of AFI Fest this past week) try to create a more behind the scenes portrait of the genius, there's left some questions and a few grumblings.  First off, is that particularly necessary?  The films left behind paint a portrait of man with curious obsessions, a fascination with voyeurism, and an attraction to beautiful blonde women.  The films themselves are a testament to that, but also enriching, master plays of a time and period where the difference between art and commerce weren't quite so divided.  Remember, Hitchcock was a populist filmmaker at the time, and prime moneymaker; his artistry and mastery wasn't quite as well established until some time after.  And certainly there's curious sparks of near sadism on display in certain features, but there remains a deeper perspective of whether a film like New Girl (which I've seen) and Hitchcock (which I have not) might, at the very least, tamper with kismet, or worse, leave a bitter taste in the mouths of the audience most primed to watch them

The Girl especially is an interesting case.  The film which stars Toby Jones (Infamous) as Hitchcock and Sienna Miller as Tippi Hedren chronicles their turbulent relationship during the filming the two movies they made together-- The Birds and Marnie.  There's an old school adage that certainly rings true that Hitch discovered Hedren, a successful model, while watching a commercial featuring her.  He chose her to come in for The Birds.  He primped and trained the neophyte actress, molding her to become the next Grace Kelly.  That's certainly stuff that's been well documented and considering Hitch's longtime regard for the then Princess of Monaco, a certain high compliment for the newcomer Hedren.  The film, based on conjecture, stories told by Hedren, and who knows what else paint a tawdry portrait of Hitchcock.  One that not just feels false but particularly pathetic.  Jones, who matches the cadences and posture of filmmaker quite well is posited as a grotesque, nearly gargoyle-like creature.  He's filmed as nearly a demented, sadistic toad, obsessing on the women he certainly could never have-- Imelda Staunton provides her usual finesse as Hitch's long-suffering wife Alma.

After molding Hedren into a movie star, Hitchcock, as seen through the shallow, flat prism of The Girl, is seen a beast.  Whether through the telling of off-color limericks to Hedren, or falsely presenting scenes of The Birds.  There's an ugly re-telling of a famous attack scene where Hitchcock forced Hedren to endure five days of being bombarded by live birds, after being assured that only mechanical birds and post production special effects would be used to for the shooting.  There's certainly evidence that occurred, with the exception of the behind the scenes drama.  The question that The Girl fails to really respond to, is why Hedren put up with it the first place.  Why she continued work with a man who seemingly punished her for not accepting his sexual passes.  Why she stayed afloat, with a brave, victim-like expression on her face when she felt so unhappy and marginalized.  Whatever speculation of the Hitchcock\Hedren relationship will forever remain a mystery, since only one side can truly ever be explored, but The Girl seems to disingenuously present Hitch as such a loathsome cad, that it reeks of caricature, and is completely bereft of humanity on either side.  Hedren is presented rather dully, and Miller's nonchalant portrayal lacks clear definition or insight.  One wonders what counterpoints past Hitchcock blondes Kelly, Eva Marie Saint, Janet Leigh or Kim Novack might provide on the subject.

The Girl even fails on the seemingly easy-get on the fun it should have in recreating some of the classic moments of The Birds and Marnie, foregoing the simple revelry of old school Hollywood glee in favor of unsightly and broadly drawn melodrama.  F

I wonder about the fate of Hitchcock, Sacha Gervasi's (Anvil! The Story of Anvil) take on the filmmaker while shooting his seminal film, Psycho.   Written by John J. McLaughlin (Black Swan) and starring a cast with a larger pedigree than The Girl, with Anthony Hopkins, Helen Mirren as his wife, Scarlett Johansson as Janet Leigh, and featuring roles for Toni Collette and Danny Huston.  Will Hitchcock succumb to the easy deducing of mans talent to small fetish, or will it be able to grasp a deeper insight in the acclaimed filmmaker.  Whatever the fate, the film has done a hell of a job in marketing itself an art house diversion, making great, good-natured fun of the man himself while acknowledging his achievement and uncanny sense of self-promotion.  I wonder also, if the film itself does become apart of the deeper Oscar dialogue if the quality of the film will matter as much as the fact that the Academy was dismissive of his talent and failed to acknowledge him at the time.  Surely, he received five Best Director nominations over the course of his career (Psycho, Rear Window, Spellbound, Lifeboat and Rebecca) and received the Irving G. Thalberg Award in 1968-- where he famously said, "Thank you," before promptly leaving the stage-- but could that failure to reward his talent at the time resurface if Hitchcock is a success.  Again with the questions!!!

For what's it worth, for a filmmaker with such a mighty talent, and an inarguable story worthy of compelling entertainment, the fascination with the auteur, the provocateur, the Master of Suspense, in my book, always deserves a resurgence.  He also deserves a superior spotlight tale than The Girl provided.

Fox Searchlight excites with "Hitchcock"

Perhaps Fox Searchlight Pictures was a little distressed on their current 2012 awards slate, or saw an early cut of magic, or whatever the case, their was a startling and tingling chill when they announced that Hitchcock would come out November 23rd.  Directed by Sacha Gervasi (helmer of the Sundance winner and crowd pleasing documentary Anvil! The Story of Anvil), Hitchcock revolves around the famed rotund filmmaker while shooting his famous Psycho, and stars Anthony Hopkins as Hitch, Helen Mirren as his wife Alma, while creating a fun opportunity for stars like Scarlet Johansson, Jessica Biel and James D'Arcy to play three uber-famous stars of yesteryear.  The verdict is still out on its award potential (Searchlight also has Beasts of the Southern Wild and The Sessions this year), or its commercial appeal, but it's press materials thus far have created nice eye candy.

A fun, Saul Bass-inspired one sheet that pays homage to Psycho as well as Hitchcock's roundness is great fun.

Hitchcock

I can think of very few filmmakers that I treasure more so than Alfred Hitchcock.  It was his film that left likely the most indelible images in more brain.  Like I'm sure so film fans, he was my first true introduction into film.  He was the first filmmaker that I could spot and think of, "that's a Hitchcock movie, that's a Hitchcock thing," before I knew of such things like auteurs.  From tone, from style, from mood...you can pick out a Hitchcock movie above anything else.  That his identity (and celebrity) informed his films made that easier to pick up upon as a child, but is was his artistry and sheer graceful gravitas was there throughout his entire career.  That his films were perceived as mere populist trifles back in their time seems ludicrous, but understandable, since it takes time for genius to get its proper due.

On that note, there isn't a film coming out in the near future that makes me more queasily anxious than 2013's Hitchcock, which tells the tale of the famed director as he was shooting his most infamous film, Psycho.  Directed by Sacha Gervasi, who made a slight impression a few years back with his critically acclaimed documentary Anvil! The Story of Anvil.  It will open, courtesy of Fox Searchlight, sometime next year...till then I worry!  The cast list includes:

Anthony Hopkins as Alfred Hitchcock.  The first still of the barely begun production movie surfaced today and it appears that at the very least, the make-up department is doing a fine job.  It's and interesting side note that Psycho is based on the tale of the real-life Ed Gein (somehow put into the film itself, being portrayed by stage actor Michael Wincott), the same figure that was the source for other films and mythologies including The Texas Chainsaw Massacre and The Silence of the Lambs (which won Hopkins an Oscar for his iconic performance as Hannibal Lector; small world.)  Helen Mirren portrays his wife Alma.

Scarlett Johansson will play Janet Leigh

 

James D'Arcy (W.E.) will play Anthony Perkins

Jessica Biel will play Vera Miles

And the rest of the cast will be rounded out by Toni Collette, Danny Huston, Wallace Langham, Michael Stuhlbarg and Kurtwood Smith.  The film was written by Stephen Rebello (author of the novel on which the film is based on) and John J. McLaughlin (Black Swan.)  What do you think of the casting?  Is anyone else geeking out of their minds?

I have to calm down about this for a whole year.......

Time Capsule Review

REAR WINDOW (1954)
directed by Alfred Hitchcock
written by John Michael Hayes & Cornell Woolrich (short story)


Rear Window is perhaps one of the most technically accomplished films ever made, but so much of it is so subtle you would probably never even realize it, which is the beauty and wonderment of the film. The story is simple, but the movie sweeps you into it so gently and so quickly it's easy not the notice the little things that make Rear Window so triumphant and dazzling, which, of course, was the forte of Mr. Hitchcock's films in general. But, if you ever catch it again (on AMC or DVD, or Netflix to the uninitiated), look closely and watch one of the most perfect American movies of all time. It's not Hitchcock's deepest film (that honor goes to Vertigo), but it's his nimblest.
The entire film is set in one Manhattan apartment, that of L.B. Jeffries (James Stewart), a renowned photographer, wheelchair bound after an assignment went awry. To calm the boredom and sweltering summer heat, he looks out his window into the courtyard of his neighbors. Over the course of his two-month sojourn from the real world, he watches them and observes them. There's the sad Miss Lonelyhearts, desperate and alone. There's the newlyweds, always seen in various states of undress and attached to each other's limbs. There's the songwriter, trying to write a new tune. There's the lovely Miss Torso, often seen with a slew of suitors. It's funny how none of this characters speak, and none of them really transcend their archetypes, but their still more developed than most leading characters in motion pictures. Of course, this being Hitchcock, we need suspense, and one of the neighbors fits the no good nick bill. That of Mr. Thorwald (Raymond Burr), whom Jeffries watches and watches with the suspicion he offed his invalid wife.
This being Hitchcock, there's also a romance. Jeffries long suffering, pining for a rock girlfriend, Lisa Carol Fremont (Grace Kelly), a privileged blue blood who wants to settle down. As Jeffries becomes more obsessed with his neighbors he hooks Lisa in, as well as his nurse Stella (Thelma Ritter-- the most reliable supporting player in the '50s.) Which is what makes Rear Window a sort of an homage to movies themselves. We go to the movies to watch other people and other people's behaviors, just as Jeffries watches his neighbors, making us all voyeurs in our own right.
What makes this movie special, and special in the Hitchcock canon is the grace, the beauty, the suspense, and the humor of the whole film. The witty dialouge and the wonderful acting and the amazing technician. Look at the courtyard-- all studio shots, and built and manufactured. Looking at the sets of current Hollywood films, it's hard to tell sometimes what was made and what was computer simulated, but looking at Rear Window you can see the beauty and majesty of a film built from the ground up.
Stewart's performance is a beaut too. It's not as layered or idiosyncratic as his Vertigo role, but he hits everything just right, with his everyman characterization whether starring out his window of complaining about Lisa's lack of adventure Kelly is dynamite too, Hitchcock always had the perfect of way using her in the three pictures they made together. She's the epitome of the Hitchcock blonde-- beautiful, but slightly mysterious. From her opening closeup, your entranced by her.
I often thought who would fit the Hitchcock blonde type if he working today-- perhaps Nicole Kidman (who is great when guided by gifted, and slightly tweaked auteurs), or Uma Thurman (who regularly masks her intelligence by her beauty), or maybe Michelle Pfieffer (I don't know why, but I think her Catwoman take have impressed the master.)
The reason I anoint Rear Window one of my all time favorites is because whenever it's on-- television, DVD, or in the theater (the digitally re-mastered release a couple years back was heavenly)-- it entrances. I get lost in it and my love for fine filmmaking is rejuvenated, if only for a little while. It inspires and bewitches every time.

For a fine satirical rendering, revist "The Simpsons" episode where Bart breaks his leg and spies on Ned Flanders, thinking he killed his wife. The made-for-television remake with Christopher Reeve and Daryl Hannah is avoidable, as is the Gen-Y ripoff Disturbia.