Kick-Ass

In thinking about Kick-Ass, the flamboyant bloodbath from director Matthew Vaughn (Layer Cake, Stardust), I think about all the colorful peripheral characters and ideas that really did kick ass, and yet, the problem is there's no center. There's no main course, just tasty appetizers. As any fan boy is aware the film is about a nerdy high school student named Dave Lizewski (Aaron Johnson), who with the help of I really don't know, urban ennui, and luck of You Tube, becomes a wannabe superhero, named, of course, Kick-Ass. He's a fairly pathetic superhero, he has no tricks or special abilities, he's a just a handsome British actor made unkempt by a bad perm job. Of course we want to identify with Kick-Ass\Dave; he's going out there trying to be a vigilante and stand up against evil, or a mugger. There's always a sense of wish fullfillment with with the superhero comics\movies, and that's the attraction, and the hunger. But here we're stuck with Dave a little too much of the time, and he's not a very interesting character, rather lifelessly played by Johnson. He's really more worried about people thinking he's gay at school; and that gay joke is played out a little too much in my opinion.

Too me, the real star of Kick-Ass is Chloe Grace Moretz. You might remember as the wise-child\confidant of Joseph Gordon Levitt in (500) Days of Summer, and I'm sure she'll be all over the place very soon. For here performance here as Mindy Macready\Hit Girl is everything that Johnson's Dave\Kick-Ass should be, but isn't- fun, stylized and gleefully profane. Trained by her father, a jilted ex-cop out for vengance, played by a hammy and awake Nicolas Cage, Mindy has been trained since a kid to be a fighter; if anything she's probably what The Bride's daughter in the Kill Bill movies would be like. And Hit Girl's real abilities as a fighter give the movie Kick-Ass is real sense of fun and danger.

Hit Girl and Kick-Ass become entangled through a series plot contrivance surrounding nefarious drug pin, and bad guy Frank D'Amico (played by Mark Strong; Stardust), whose son is played by Christopher Mintz Plasse (McLovin' from Superbad,) and it's in his son's creation comes another superhero, one in which to trap Kick-Ass, whom D'Amico for some strange reason thinks actually isn't an awkward, harmless high school geek, but a real threat. I mention all of these, fairly bored with what I'm writing, because that's exactly how I felt watching it. There's a little too much D'Amico, who for the stature of a gifted actor like Strong gives to it, still felt like one of the weaker villians in superhero movie land. What might have made the film better in my opinion is if Vaughn had show the same interest and stylized glee to the rest of the film, that is bestowed upon Hit-Girl. If you're making a wannabe Tarantino splatter film, than go for it full-throttle, not just in stop and go sections. There's a brief segment toward to the end of the film where Hit Girl kills and slices and dices a bunch of big, bad men to the tune of Joan Jett's Bad Reputation, and it's probably the most fun part of the film. For the record that over-played but joyous song hasn't been put to better use since it was the theme song to Freaks and Geeks. C+

The Joneses

Every once in a while a high-concept film that feels like it could be transgressive portrait of modern American life. I thought that, albeit very briefly, in entering The Joneses, a twee satire about a fake family who moves into a wealthy neighborhood in order to sell their luxury items stuff around town. The films states fairly early on that they're selling not merchandise, but a lifestyle. And that lifestyle feels very much attuned to that of the American nuclear family. The father, mother-- both pretty and kind, a boy and girl. All that's missing from The Joneses is a dog and a white picket fence. It sounds like a novel setup, especially in a 2010 recession era, post-Bush America, where the middle class is evaporated. And so that's the premise to Derrick Borte's film, his directorial debut, and it's a fairly polished one at that. What needs improvement is the writing-- I kept expected the film to really show it's teeth and have real bite to it, but whenever the story got darker, Borte retreated and went soft. It's not really the problem of the actors, all of whom deserved better-- as the fake father, David Duchovney plays up his handsome charm. And in a surprise, Demi Moore as Mrs. Jones proves quite capable of earthy mother\icy businesswoman. The kids played by Amber Heard and Ben Hollingsworth aren't really given much to do-- she's basically a nymphomaniac, and he's a closeted homosexual-- they play their notes adequately, but that's all. Where The Joneses fails is in the ill-conceived plot contrivance of fake husband Duchovney and fake wife Moore falling for each other-- it's turns what could be bona fide delicious social satire into a sacharrine and false romantic comedy. Especially considering the relationship between Duchovney and neighbor Gary Cole, a victim who falls for all of Mr. Jones' sale pitches, is an even riper and far more relevant one. C

Cannes Film Festival

The line-up for the 2010 Cannes Film Festival has arrived, however expect late entries to announced in the coming weeks.

IN COMPETITION

“Another Year” (Mike Leigh) stars Imelda Staunton-- the last Leigh\Staunton film was Vera Drake, a wonderful, beautiful film, very much excited
“Biutiful” (Alejandro González Iñárritu) Inarritu's followup to Babel starring Javier Bardem
“Burnt by the Sun 2″ (Nikita Mikhalkov) sequel to a film that won the 1997 foreign language Oscar
“Certified Copy” (Abbas Kiarostami) from the acclaimed Iranian director of The Man Without a Past, this one will likely win a prize, I'll bet my life on it.
“Fair Game” (Doug Liman) stars Naomi Watts and Sean Penn.
“Housemaid” (Im Sang-soo)
“La Nostra Vita” (Daniele Luchetti)
“Of Gods and Men” (Xavier Beauvois)
“Outrage” (Takeshi Kitano)
“Outside the Law” (Rachid Bouchareb)
“Poetry” (Lee Chang-dong)
“The Princess of Montpensier” (Bertrand Tavernier)
“A Screaming Man” (Mohamed-Saleh Haroun)
“Tournée” (Mathieu Amalric) Amalric starred in the Cannes favorite The Diving Bell and the Butterfly.
“Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives” (Achitpong Weerasethakul)
“You, My Joy” (Sergei Loznitsa)

OUT OF COMPETITION

“Robin Hood” (Ridley Scott) (opening film)
“Tamara Drewe” (Stephen Frears)
“Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps” (Oliver Stone)
“You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger” (Woody Allen)

UN CERTAIN REGARD

“Adrienn Pál” (Ágnes Kocsis)
“Aurora” (Cristi Puiu)
“Blue Valentine” (Derek Cianfrance) stars Ryan Gosling and Michelle Williams, opened to much acclaim at this year Sundance Film Festival
“Chatroom” (Hideo Nakata)
“Chongqing Blues” (Xiaoshuai Wang)
“The City Below” (Christoph Hochhäusler)
“Film Socialisme” (Jean-Luc Godard)
“Ha Ha Ha” (Hong Sang-soo)
“Heartbeats” (Xavier Dolan)
“Life Above All” (Oliver Schmitz)
“The Lips” (Ivan Fund and Santiago Loza)
“Octubre” (Daniel Vega)
“Rebecca H. (Return to the Dogs)” (Lodge Kerrigan)
“R U There” (David Verbeek)
“Simon Werner Has Disappeared” (Fabrice Gobert)
“The Strange Case of Angelica” (Manoel de Oliveira)
“Tuesday, After Christmas” (Radu Muntean)
“Udaan” (Vikramaditya Motwane)

MIDNIGHT SCREENINGS

“Blackhole” (Gilles Marchand)
“Kaboom” (Gregg Araki) Araki directed the amazing Mysterious Skin

SPECIAL SCREENINGS

“Abel” (Diego Luna) Luna starred in Y Tu Mama Tambien.
“Chantrapas” (Otar Iosseliani)
“Draquila: L’Italia Che Trema” (Sabina Guzzante)
“Inside Job” (Charles Ferguson)
Nostalgia for the Light” (Patricio Guzman)
“Over Your Cities Grass Will Grow” (Sophie Fiennes)

The Kids Are All Right

Already a festival favorite, as seen by it's enormous reception at this year Sundance and Berlin film festivals, this lesbian comedy has become one of the more interesting films of 2010. And I can't wait for it. Lisa Cholodenko (High Art, Laurel Canyon) is an insightful writer-director returning for a several year break from films, and stars Annette Bening, Julianne Moore and Mark Ruffalo seem like a perfect combination for lesbian couple\male sperm donor roles, respectively. Also, I'm curious about the casting of Mia Wasikowska (the single bright spot in the dullard Alice in Wonderland) as Bening and Moore's daughter. All answers will hopefully and happely revealed when Focus Features opens the film July 7-- it seems like their trying to attract the Little Miss Sunshine slot.

Women in Trouble

I just viewed this teeny-tiny film from 2009, one I'm sure few have heard about...it's current box office is a measly pathetic $18,000. It was directed by Sebastian Gutierrez, and it's a collection of vignettes focused on women in trouble as the title says. It's a twee, very small, fairly absurd collection of stories that rate somewhere in the sub-Pedro Almodovar caliber. But it's also a fairly enjoyable, silly film. There's a woman who recently discovered her husband had an affair, a flight attendant having randy sex with a rock star in an airplane bathroom, a porn star who discovers she's pregnant, and a woman hiding a secret involving her niece. However what makes Women in Trouble noteworthy is that the film spotlights nice form-fitting roles to two superior actresses who really should be more famous, and who should be getting the lion's share of superior roles out there. There names are Carla Gugino and Connie Britton.

Gugino came to somewhat fame as the mother of Spy Kids (films I admittedly have never seen), and Britton can be seen on the television show Friday Night Lights. Ironically both actresses first appeared in the Michael J. Fox show Spin City. The point of this post is that I was engaged fully and foremost when these two actresses where on here, and there work, as in general for both them, is stellar. Gugino seems to have a preternatural gage on what she's playing and who she's playing to at all times, as evident in her terrific turns in Sin City, The Center of the World, and most recently in Watchmen, and here she's porn star Eletra Luxx-- she nails every punchline and has this wonderful ease, in that she plays up when required and plays down as well, but always feels comfortable and confident.


She's striking in her upfrontness, but still able to play poignancy and vulnerabilty. In short she's always a joy to watch, and in a fair world she would rank with people like Julianne Moore and Cate Blanchett in the roles of non-ingeniunes, real female characters. Of course she's no where near as famous, and sadly getting to that age where Hollywood forgets about you altogether. Really was I the only one who felt it was shameful she had to settle for the mother role in Watchmen when she was 100% more vibrant and sexy than the stiff and boring Malin Ackerman. (Tangent) Britton has mostly done television work, but I personally, would love to see more of this beautiful, earthy creature on the screen. The high points of Guttierez's work here are the segments involving Britton and Gugino stuck on an elevator, and these two pros (mostly in sadly forgettable projects) act the hell out of it. And so I emplore and movie gods to keep these two employed for years, decades to come, because they have such a knack of creating interesting, completed characters out of basically nothing, and I pray one day that some miraclous filmmaker will bestow each of them a character worthy of their enormous talents.

Women in Trouble didn't do anything in theaters, but it's worth a rental for these two alone, and some well-written absurdist humor, as well as a hammy performance by Josh Brolin as a Brit rock star. And kudos to Guttierez for giving a segment to Marley Shelton, my favorite performer from Grindhouse (Her three little friends were classic.) B-