12 Years a Slave

Throughout cinematic history, there's been an undeniable race problem that's run deep in Hollywood filmmaking, particularly when tackling the subject of slavery.  The grand global practice whose currents throughout America still run with a trepidation, a fear and a tremendous supply of guilt; it would be difficult if nearly impossible not to impose some kind of sermon.  In that respect, the immense impression of brute honesty, violence and degradation on display in director Steve McQueen's impeccably made 12 Years a Slave does more than a solid, it provides a lulling and masterful refrain to decades of Hollywood glossing over an aspect of a repugnant period in American history.  More so than anecdote to the Hollywood treatment (expressed from Gone With the Wind to last years' Django Unchained), McQueen and screenwriter John Ridley have adapted the amazing-purely-for-the-sake-that-it-exists first person novel written by it's real-life protagonist, one Solomon Northup, and made a searingly truthful, lived-in account of the horrors of slavery.  And if the utter and intentional lack of Hollywood spectacle and overt emotional manipulation marks the film a bit cold, a bit emotionally detached in the end, it's still remains an essential film merely for existing in the first place.

The film chronicles the titular hell of Solomon, a free black man in 1841.  He lives a quietly dignified life with his wife and two children, a gifted musician and educated in scholarly ways that were rarely afforded in that time period.  When a job opportunity arises for a circus show, Solomon finds himself shackled and shipped off to become a slave after a night of carousing and celebratory libations.  From the start, 12 Years a Slave shows itself to be a film unafraid to show the brutal honesty of the period and the film charts Solomon's course with a clear-eyed intensity that's becomes more and more terse as the audience continues down his path.  Solomon is played with an unerring dignity by Chiwetel Ejiofor in a subdued but tremendously alert performance.  The British-born actor has always been a strikingly alive performer on screen and if nothing more, this film should hopefully bolster his career outside the marginalized supporting parts he's skillfully but thanklessly played in recent years.  The immense integrity that Ejiofor hold at once strikes a committed chord, even as his character proves more to be an observer.

"12 Years a Slave" Trailer Drops

"I don't want to survive...I want to live"

Perhaps all is well in movie land when provocative and daring filmmakers like Steve McQueen can manage to find financing and send off such hard-sell movies like 12 Years a Slave to the multiplex.  McQueen's third feature, following 2008's Hunger and 2011's Shame makes a bid to be his biggest and awards baitiest.  Featuring an ensemble of players including Chiwetel Ejiofor in the role of Solomon Northup, a free black man abducted into a life a slavery, McQueen muse Michael Fassbender as the Big Bad, cinema good Samaritan Brad Pitt and an always-welcome Alfre Woodard.

I'm so glad distributor Fox Searchlight decided against the original December 27th release date in favor a mid-October plan.  A provocative film like this (a rarity considering it tackles the issue of slavery through the eyes of a black filmmaker...think about that) deserves time to build and to soak itself in the cinematic unconscious, a time of which would be utterly unsuitable in the post-Christmas glut.

RIP: The 5 Best Performances of 2012 Without the Slightest Bit of a Chance in Hell

It came with a great shock and awe when Nicole Kidman's trashy Southern belle performance in The Paperboy netted the Academy Award winner nominations from both the Golden Globes and the Screen Actors Guild.  The road to the Oscar for the critically reviled Lee Daniels' gothic nor is tremulous at best, even for an actress with the refinement and temperament of someone like Kidman shepherding away.  While I, personally, couldn't really go on board with The Paperboy, I strongly admire the dedication and craft and deft hidden skill of Kidman's performance and greatly applaud the out-of-left-field choice, even if perhaps its a bit smeared by the fact the Hollywood Foreign Press likely nominated her more so that she would attend the fancy show versus the strength and magnitude of her performance.  Cynicism aside, it's great when choices like this are made by merit, instead of all-encompassing, often sadly confining choices typically made by what's been pre-selected as an "awards film."  Here are 5 other performances that shouldn't have been overlooked:

Emily Blunt in Looper
Blunt has had a pretty impressive 2012, with nicely modulated turns in The Five-Year Engagement, Your Sister's Sister, Looper and Salmon Fishing on the Yemen.  She received a random Golden Globe nomination for the latter, but it was her performance in Rian Johnson's dazzling science fiction feature that was the most fascinating.  At first nearly unrecognizable, exhibiting a raw toughness she has never really showcased before, she paints a vivid performance as young woman who would do anything to protect her child.  As introduced as a rifle-toting alpha, Blunt carefully and exquisitely unveils hidden vulnerabilities and maternal good-naturedness, while casually transgressing the archetypes of the noir vixen at the same time.  In a fairly weak Best Supporting Actress line-up, her's was one of the strongest, and is worthy of a nod alongside the locks of the category-- a French prostitute, bio-polar First Lady, and sex surrogate.

Michael Fassbender in Prometheus
Shamelessly snubbed last year for his incomparable work in the tough indie Shame, Fassbender went another direction in 2012 as the mysterious humanoid David in Ridley Scott's massively hyped and slightly underwhelming Alien origin story.  However, Fassbender, with his magnetic charisma and always intoxicating intensity bridged a few of the thematic boggles with an ingenuity and mystery and even an elegance.  We were never quite sure what was triggering David, aside from his obsession with Peter O'Toole and Lawrence of Arabia, but he bestowed such a credulous interest that he's work feels as deserving of trophies and plaudits just as much as those in the more "prestige" films.

Eva Green in Dark Shadows
Mere best in show honors seems like too small a praise for Green's remarkably agile performance in Tim Burton's massive dud- a retooling of the popular? soap opera.  I honestly believe that if the film, a shaky rehashing and dumping ground of past Burton forays, had been on line with the way that Green portrays the slinky, funny, dangerous, sexy villain Angelique, it would have been a ghoulishly fun ride.  As is, it's mostly a mess, but like Kidman in The Paperboy, Green's choices, line readings and allure cast a wider net than the sum of her films drifting parts.  Charismatic, fetching and adroitly playing to room, as her co-stars are slumping for pay day, Green was the best thing in a bad thing all year long.

Channing Tatum in 21 Jump Street
It was the year of Channing, like it or not, and even ones not quite wise to the charms that led 2012's sexiest man alive to churn out three films to grosses north of $100, one would be hard pressed to not be charmed, amused and elated by his masterfully on the nose supporting performance in 21 Jump Street.  Playing half of a team of cops sent back to high school, Tatum's sweet dim bulb showcases a versatility, grand sense of play, and a knack for comic timing, that counts as one of the biggest cinematic surprises of the year.  That he imbues an honest sensitivity to the broadly stretched raunchiness is a small miracle.

Charlize Theron in Snow White & the Huntsman
Unjustly ignored in 2011 for her bravura turn in the dark comedy Young Adult, Theron further found her grove in bitchiness as the Evil Queen in one of the thousand or so takes on Grimm classic this year.  Playing up the vanity and clearly having a ball, she merely saves Snow White & the Huntsman from the eternal doldrums of self-seriousness, but underlies her evilness with a grand connection with the scope, tremor and insecurity of her most powerful weapon-- her beauty.  Theron continued to be fairest of them all, but awards season probably won't pay much attention-- they usual prefer they're beautiful to de-glam for their art.

Prometheus

With an unbridled ambition, amazingly sculpted production values, and a hype machine that is sort of unheard of, even in today's hyperbolic, every-week-releases-a-new-event-title world comes Ridley Scott's Prometheus.  Scott returning to the science fiction genre, one that he helped sculpt and mold for more forward thinking modern audiences, after a thirty absence would be enough a cause for celebration.  That Prometheus, despite it's non-committal marketing campaign, is essentially a de facto prequel to his 1979 horror masterwork Alien should give shivers to cinephiles everywhere.  While times may have changed, his latest is, but of course, offered in splendorific third dimension for the heightened demands of studio executives in love with head wear surcharges, there's still something striking about Scott's filmmaking.  The jolt, the bristles of tension, employed by an ingenious sound design and complementary score, coupled with a pristine and appropriately gray color scheme; his flair for pacing and dynamic for chills is still as sharp as ever.

It's just a bit of shame that his ambition got a little ahead of him this time out.  For as a chilly horror show, Prometheus hits the mark.  As a heavier, brainy piece of speculative science fiction, it's a bit messier.  Clearly Scott and team (the film was written by Jon Spaihts and Lost's Damon Lindelof) are aiming-- for the first half at least-- for the more minded scope of something like Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey, for the quest at hand is no less than the origins of humanity.  A mission, headed by true-believer archeologist Elizabeth Shaw (Noomi Rapace- the original Girl With the Dragon Tattoo), and funded by an ominous third party corporation seemingly with motives of their own, the stage is set for flight aboard the space ship Prometheus.  With themes that spew heavier than the film can really handle, there's a two fold to Prometheus.  On one side there's a fun, futuristic caper with spellbinding effects, and on the other, a drabber, less fulfilling treatise on playing with fire, while trying to meet ones maker.  Thankfully, Scott relieves the high mindedness, for the most part, behind come the second half as we journey to that place where no one can hear you scream.

Shaw is an interesting character, and a wise one to detract with Sigourney Weaver's Ripley.  Both are smart, strong and vulnerable, but in altogether different ways.  Part of that lies in Rapace's performance, which is strong enough to eclipse the films murkier moments, and the earlier stages of the film, where the is-it\isn't-is a prequel to Alien are a bit more confounding.  Shaw is a woman of faith, of which is only really documented by the cross around her neck-- Hollywood in the year 2012, even in a film set in 2093, is still a bit sketchy on fully committing to any sort of religious affiliation-- who discovers primitive cave etchings that might point to the origins of man.  Along with her boyfriend, the more Darwinian-based Charlie (Logan Marshall-Green), and a motley-crew of geologists and character actors aboard the ship.  Idris Elba plays the no-nonsense captain of the ship, providing nicely balanced levity to the terror and Charlize Theron plays a corporate stooge, along for the ride, and essays for the second time this summer (third time in a year counting Young Adult) yet another icy woman contemptuous of all, and again nails it thoroughly with most entertaining results.

The most novel part of Prometheus is the introduction of the robot David (Michael Fassbender), a sort of HAL-clone who models himself after Peter O'Toole in Lawrence in Arabia in disposition and elocution.  The surprise is that the motivations about David are never really made clear, and that jolts the film in a nicely-modulated balance between falling for and detesting the man-made creature.  The glee comes fully in Fassbender's performance, and it's wry sense of humor, and slight danger.  Perhaps the only thing David really seeks is his own freedom.  The lead performances across the map are top-drawer, but the fun begins as the body count rises and the origins of Prometheus start to take it's place.  The gore is subtle by today's standards but a few sequences hold a candle to the jolting Jon Hurt through-the-stomach scene in the original Alien, especially an eerie performance of self administered surgery that should delight the horror devoted.  And that's where Scott's master class of pacing and control come firmly back in stride, as an anxious quiver of panic is unleashed in the second half, prompting that joyously queasy sensation of watching through a hands covered face.

The real stars of Prometheus really are the aces behind the scenes.  The beautifully rendered and bountifully epic production design by Arthur Max and the immaculately lensed photography by Dariusz Wolski are bountiful, even in the earlier patches of Tree of Life-ponderousness is taking place.  Scott can always be expected to deliver on those fronts, with billowing, "Are you not entertained" pronouncements, but the spectacle of Prometheus is most certainly alive and exhilarating.  The chills and terror of mysterious creatures wrecking havoc are as well.  Too bad all the theology and philosophy gets in the way of a good time.  B

Shame

Harsh and cold, brittle and fascinating, Shame, the controversial, newly instated NC-17 second feature from British filmmaker Steve McQueen is a haunting experience, mostly due to the stark realism that grounds its intense nature.  Yet for a film that dives into human sexuality with such a brisk nonchalance, it's easy, if perhaps slightly false, to call a film like this titillating, or exploitative-- a matter of which the misguided prudes that make up the Motion Picture Association of America, or many regular filmgoers themselves might struggle with.  For this is a movie; and a specifically grown-up movie, about a man with an unhealthy sexual addiction-- one that prevents genuine human contact of nearly any kind-- with friends, family, much less potentially solid suitors.  What matters and makes the film a unique and interesting slice of cinema is the humanity and non-judgmental ques the director gives his actors, and the nakedly expressive performances that arise from it...so much so that the heavily hyped nudity of the picture feels so much of an after-thought after the film is completed, and lingers and questions and builds from whatever you bring to it, and take out of it.  Much like McQueen's first feature, Hunger (which centered around the real-life hunger strike lead by IRA prisoner Bobby Sands), Shame is bold, yet quiet...propulsive, but controlled...interesting and unsettling and difficult shake, in spite of and because of its flaws.  In short, it's a film that may gain notoriety due to its dangling body parts, but it's a haunting feature that matters.

The hero of sorts is Michael Fassbender, who got his big breakthrough with Hunger a few years back and was awarded a richly deserved Best Actor mention at this years Venice Film Festival for Shame.  He plays Brandon, an Irish-born corporate swell in Manhattan, and the first beats of the film reveal his unhealthy sexual routine, consisting of online pornography, prostitutes, regular hook-up girls, all the while maintaining his quiet, easy-going self around drinks with his co-workers.  It's an uncomfortable rut from the start, and the quick entrance of his wayward younger sister Sissy (Carey Mulligan) shifts and slowly starts to mess Brandon up ever more.  While their backstory is never explained, the notes and disconnection between Brandon and Sissy is obvious and destructive.  Sissy is a seen at first as a charmingly flaky free spirit; she could easily be a token girlfriend part in a silly romantic comedy, but she's just as damaged, and the ebb and flow of their relationship is part of the complicated, but spellbinding achievement of Shame.  He, the tightly wound introvert trails off for anonymous sex and inappropriate self-love (or hate), while she is more the outgoing, impulsive type who leaves her vulnerability to the stage, as she is a wannabe lounge singer.  There's an eerily striking early scene where Sissy performs "New York, New York" in a slow manner that serves both as wake-up call and cry for help simultaneously for both her and Brandon.  That the scene is shot in a nearly unbroken take adds to the raw vulnerability.

McQueen's slow moving camera and tight shots of his actors inform the tension and work almost as another character altogether, exposing the actors in a way that would feel almost voyeuristic if it weren't grounded in so much reality.  For it's really a rare film that pounces on the darker aspects of human behavior, and characters both fully formed and still strangely kept at arms length; the closer more personal scenes with Brandon and Sissy linger because of the things not said, and the distance between them.  The game changer that eventually spirals Brandon further down his destructive path is one that seems, at first, entirely throwaway.  He's chatted up and hit on by an attractive co-worker (played with graceful humanity by Nicole Beharie) and the two go on an actual date; something entirely foreign to Brandon as his fiddles and fuses while trying to make conversation and put aside his own baggage he's so eager to dispose of.  The scene itself is rendered with acute precision-- McQueen this time pulls back his camera, as Brandon struggles, as he's knowingly aware that he may have met a good one and is fearful of what to do.  The only caveat to this rich scene is a stink of misjudged comedy that throws the rhythms off the alluring duets of the actors.

In the end, Brandon succumbs to his nature in almost excruciating sequence of hitting bottom.  It's masterfully shot in pieces, for the audience to link what happened when, and while thankfully it doesn't quite have the over-the-top Lost Weekend feel, it's unblinkingly terse.  Fassbender is nearly impenetrable, distilling such a clear authority over his dark character, that when he unravels in such naked abandon, it's heartbreaking and exhausting.  To his and the films credit as a whole, Brandon is never presented as a glamorous ladies man, nor a charming cad, but something altogether more haunting and human: a sad, lonely man who long ago disconnected himself from everyone-- casual sex is the only way he can express himself with another person, forgotten the rhythms and joy of intimacy.  That Fassbender is also such an endearing and charmingly expressive performer, with movie star stature makes the transition all the more unsettling.  Mulligan nearly matches Fassbander, as does many of the other nameless supporting players, most pop up for a scene or two of anonymous pairing.  McQueen makes the demanding nature of the story explicit on everyone, including the audience.

But that's also the wonder of a film like Shame, in that even under such strict demands, it manages to be alive and exciting at the same time for the that patient, grown-up moviegoer.  And for a feature called Shame, there's never that judgement expressed on its characters, that's all internal-- Brandon is ashamed of himself.  And moreso for a movie that's so rich in substance and mood, it becomes more and more interesting when the film slightly goes astray and loses itself every once in a while, for unintended histrionics in a feature so painfully raw are quickly grounded by the steady hand of the actors and McQueen's grimly beautiful camera.  A-

Shame trailer

The provocative, sex-filled first tease of Shame, the Michael Fassbender\Carey Mulligan film.  It looks pretty amazing...

Shame poster

Shame, the hot button fall festival favorite that earned 2011 MVP Michael Fassbender the Best Actor prize at this years Venice Film Festival.  There's a lot more of interest too, for it's the second feature from director Steve McQueen, after the harrowing but brilliantly put together 2008 feature Hunger (which also featured Fassbender.)  There's also the glowing early praise, the pairing of two of today's brightest young stars (Carey Mulligan co-stars), and the titillating premise of a man battling an addiction to sex, which is promising a boundary pushing, expected to be NC-17, full frontal showing drama.  All of which might pose a problem for it's newly aligned distributor, Fox Searchlight, or maybe not, rating and sexual controversy helped last year's Blue Valentine, then again this one may not be the type of film that makes a strong Academy showing either.  Either way, the teaser poster is sparse and artful, and does exactly what it should do...teases.

Venice Film Festival Winners

Golden Lion: Faust (Russia), directed by Aleksandr Sokurov (he also directed the art house one-shot hit Russian Ark)
Silver Lion for Best Director: Shangjun Cai, Mountain People Sea (China)
Special Jury Prize: Terraferma (Italy), directed by Emanuele Crialese
Volpi Cup for Best Actor: Michael Fassbender, Shame (UK)
Volpi Cup for Best Actress: Deannie Yip, A Simple Life (China, Hong Kong)
Osella Award for Best Screenplay: Alps (Greece)- Yorgos Lanthimos & Efthimis Filippou
Osella Award for Best Technical Contribution: Robbie Ryan (cinematography), Wuthering Heights (UK)
Marcello Mastroianni Award for Best Acting Newcomer: Shota Sometani, Himizu (Japan)

The big news that Michael Fassbender, who pulled double duty at this years Venice Film Festival with Shame (directed by Steve McQueen, who also helmed Fassbender's breakthrough Hunger in 2008) as well as co-starring in David Croenberg's A Dangerous Method won top honors for his portrait of a sex addict.  The film itself, based on early reviews, seems like unlikely catnip for the Academy, but it certainly ups the credibility for the up and coming, and seemingly ubiquitous actor, he's already scaled the heights of such iconic roles of Magneto and Mr. Rochester, and that's this year alone.  The film was recently snapped up by Fox Searchlight, which will be interesting for a film that most seem to think will get slapped with an NC-17.

The other get was Alps, which was directed and co-authored by the provocateur of last year's best foreign language film nominee Dogtooth, as well as the cinematography mention for the umpteenth rendition of Wuthering Heights, directed by Andrea Arnold, whose 2009 feature Fish Tank (which co-starred Fassbender) was a beaut.

A Dangerous Method

The most eagerly awaited film of the year (at least by me; really nothing else compares sight unseen) is A Dangerous Method.  Directed by David Croenberg, written by Christopher Hampton (Dangerous Liaisons, Atonement) and starring Viggo Mortenssen, Michael Fassbender (currently the best thing of the recent X-Men: First Class) and Keira Knightley, with a tantalizing subject matter-- the work of Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung, I'm positively giddy.  Thankfully, the nice folks at Sony Pictures Classics recently acquired the film, so a cozy (and likely awards friendly) 2011 release is all but assured.

X-Men: First Class

There's always been something special about X-Men, something that distinguishes it from the countless comic book franchises, something personal, and while perhaps far from deep, a somewhat universal understanding of acceptance.  That the stories are tapped out for popcorn fun is most of the appeal, but there's always been a small nugget of substance in the tale of mutant superheros, that could easily resonate with anyone whose ever felt marginalized.  It's in that these mutants could be stand-ins for anybody.  It's with that nugget of substance that has always permeated the films as well, fairly well especially in the first two directed by Bryan Singer, the misguided third film directed by Brett Ratner, as well as the off-putting Wolverine stand alone are probably best forgotten, and so the latest iteration is for the most part a welcome return, despite indifference in marketing and a clear exploitation of the machine at work.  X-Men: First Class, a sequel, a prequel, a reboot, and whatever else starts at the very beginning, and while cluttered and full of endless beginnings and teases, two functions work splendidly: the introductions of Charles Xavier and Erik Lehnsherr, would be adversaries played with skillful precision and utmost appeal by James McAvoy and Michael Fassbender.

The latest adventure, directed by Matthew Vaughn (Kick-Ass, Stardust, Layer Cake), a nifty stylist if less sturdier storyteller, is also the first, though the character chronology is somewhat wobbly.  Its the 1960s, and Charles (not yet Professor X) is a swinging Oxford graduate, more interested in using his special telepathic gifts for hitting on women than anything else.  And Erik (not yet Magneto) is a full of rage survivor of Nazi torment, hellbent on using his special powers for vengeance.  We meet a bunch of other soon-to-be mutant powerhouses, all still in pint-size form, plus the introduction of the confused interest from the government, plus there's a baddie in the form of Kevin Bacon.  There's a lot of beginnings and as the sort with films of this kind made at this point in Hollywood history, much of X-Men: First Class is exposition; there is a little bit of X-Men: Episode 1 syndrome, and at times it plays like a very intriguing television pilot.  The magic so to speak is in the relationship between Charles and Erik, both powerful and also both right, which makes them so intriguing.  McAvoy brings such quiet dignity to the role that pronounces the diplomacy in achieving acceptance, while Fassbender brings such intensity to his mindset that it's the rest of the world that should change.  The dueling agendas and opposing styles are the soul of the film.  These two are the flip side of the same coin, and whenever the somewhat messy First Class gives these two the stage, it works, and the machinations of comic book movie plotting and endless franchise juxtaposition are put aside.

The rest of the mutants sadly don't fare quite as well.  For every nice touch, like Jennifer Lawrence's sensitively layered, angst-ridden portrayal of Raven (soon to be Mystique), there's a bland and slightly vacuous one, like January Jones as Emma Frost, who seems to let the nifty special effects act for her (much like she does with the nicely draped dresses on Mad Men.)  It goes without saying that perhaps not everyone deserved an origin story of their own.  With so much carefully plotted exposition on hand, the threat of X-Men: First Class seems almost arbitrary, the principal bad guy is a megalomaniac with world control on his mind, and shares a back story with Erik, he's played with an oily grin by Kevin Bacon, and while intimidating, the film spends so much time with his character, Sebastian Shaw, on the back burner, it feels especially more and more like filler.  The best aspects of the X-Men films have always been the inner conflict anyway.  Which is not to say the action is at a loss here at all-- there's a neat underwater action sequence with Erik and a submarine (that provides a nice meet-cute moment for Erik and Charles), and even cooler missile attack later in the film, that does the rare thing in an action spectacle in that it also works as cathartic character moment.

There is however a feeling of a missed opportunity, one that applies to all the X-Men films in fact, in that something special and cosmic about the characters, one that First Class scarcely has room to include, aside from a few heavy handed lines of dialogue.  There's always been a light social commentary in the story, that these mutants are stand-ins for anyone every left behind, be it by age, race, gender, orientation, or what have you, but it's never quite been properly exploited.  One could remove one of the hundreds of beginnings and linger a bit at smaller moments like Mystique finding liberation in her blue skin, or perhaps meditate a bit longer on the burden of being special.  Of course this is a summer blockbuster, and not a character study art flick, of which I understand, but there's a certain sadness that a film, that in many ways feels and certainly looks carefully and thoughtfully made, there's still the nagging baggage of the Hollywood machine working full tilt. 

Every scene and every character entrance practically teases the premise of the next X-Men movie, just like every other big Hollywood film.  The problem is we are watching this movie.  It's in that tease and modern filmmaking template (one of which isn't the fault of director Vaughn nor six credited writers) that needs to be abandoned.  A film of nothing but beginnings can be promising, but never completed, nor transcendent.  And all the charms of X-Men: First Class, and there are many behind the two superb men gracefully filling out superhero roles including fun production values and rousing mutants-in-training vignettes, there's even time for a few nifty cameos, there's also a vacuum.  And in a modern movie age where everything must be started, and re-started and the longest running franchises require two-part conclusions, one must call uncle and perhaps pray for a day when a film is graced with the privilege to finally end.  B-