Michael Fassbender – People Talking

Twofer Movie Review – ‘Only The Brave’ and ‘The Snowman’ – Fire and Ice

Ordinarily I can find some kind of connection when reviewing two films at once, but I’m at a loss here, other than these two having the same release date.

Only The Brave

Directed by Joseph Kosinski
Written by Ken Nolan and Eric Warren Singer, based on the GQ article “No Exit” by Sean Flynn
Cast: Josh Brolin, Miles Teller, Jeff Bridges, James Badge Dale, Taylor Kitsch, Jennifer Connelly, Andie MacDowell, Geoff Stults, Alex Russell, Thad Luckinbill, Ben Hardy, Scott Haze, Jake Picking, Ryan Jason Cook
Soundtrack: Joseph Trapanese

A few weeks ago I woodshedded a pair of “based on a true story” films and I was not eager to do the same thing again this week.

Fortunately, I don’t have to.

I hesitate to call it great, but Only The Brave is very good. A bit uneven perhaps, but it’s a fitting and deeply heartfelt tribute to a group of men who battled not flesh and blood, but rather the fierceness of nature itself.

In a word: wildfires.

If you’re unfamiliar with the world of wildfire firefighting, don’t worry, the movie gives you a pretty clear picture, so much so that I won’t even bother to provide a primer, but suffice it to say it’s not the sort of work for the faint of heart, to say nothing of the physical demands.

It sounds like the most obvious thing in the world, but Only The Brave has realism on its side. I don’t know all the true life facts, I know for sure there’s some timeline shifting, but, on the whole, you don’t get the impression that there’s a lot of Hollywood-ing going on, which is nice for this sort of movie; and, outside of a few dream sequences for Josh Brolin’s character, nothing is even shot in a way that would seem unrealistic.

Speaking of Josh Brolin, this movie has a great cast (including Jennifer Connelly, who’s still as captivating as ever, and James Badge Dale, who’s probably my favorite actor who’s not yet a household name), and they all do solid work, though because it’s a feature film and not a miniseries, not a lot of people get much to do (there are twenty guys on the hotshot crew alone, let alone the other supporting characters, so screen time is at a premium for just about everybody). It’s hard for me to be critical because maybe everyone is portraying their real-life counterpart perfectly, but if there’s one performance I found puzzling at times, it’s from Taylor Kitsch, but, again, I don’t know.

Given that I didn’t know the story going in, I’ll assume most people won’t know the story going in either, so I’ll leave that to be discovered, but it’s most certainly a story worth telling, and I think Only The Brave tells it well.

It may feel a bit by the numbers at times (I mean, Peter Berg has had a near-monopoly on this kind of film the past few years), but I’d say it’s a movie absolutely worth seeing theatrically.

Just make sure you bring some tissues.

Rating: ★★★★☆

The Snowman

Directed by Tomas Alfredson
Written by Peter Straughan, Hossein Amini, and Søren Sveistrup, based on the novel Snømannen by Jo Nesbø
Cast: Michael Fassbender, Rebecca Ferguson, Charlotte Gainsbourg, Val Kilmer, J.K. Simmons, Ronan Vibert, Toby Jones, Genevieve O’Reilly, James D’Arcy, Adrian Dunbar, Chloë Sevigny, Anne Reid, Jamie Michie, Alec Newman, Jamie Clayton
Soundtrack: Marco Beltrami

Boy, was this a disappointment.

The Snowman has pretty much all of the elements you need for a pulpy crime thriller: based on a novel (one book in an expansive series; if they were planning on a movie series, that ship has now sailed), a drunkard detective, a murderer with a gimmick, intrigue, flashbacks, and, perhaps most importantly, an A-list cast devoting themselves to B-level material (somebody even plays twins).

This could have been so-good-it’s-good, so-bad-it’s-good, or, at the very least, just some trashy fun, but the execution was totally lacking (and, if recent rumors are to be believed, so was 10-15% of the script).

Right off the bat, there’s a lethargy to this film that it never quite shakes, and I don’t know that it could be fixed purely with editing. I was never so bored that I completely checked out, but, make no mistake, this was a bit of a chore to watch.

In contrast to Only The Brave, The Snowman thoroughly wastes its tremendous cast. Honestly, there’s not one standout performance in the whole bunch, at least not in a good way. Val Kilmer has a strange role that’s made doubly stranger by some truly awful dubbing, which I have zero explanation for, but that’s about it.

None of this really matters, however, because, in the end, this movie isn’t worth seeing or talking about any further.

I questioned whether it would be worth full price, but it’s not even worth a matinee.

Shame.

Rating: ★★☆☆☆

Classic Movie Review – ‘Inglourious Basterds’ – “…this just might be my masterpiece.”

Original Release Date: August 21, 2009
Written and Directed by Quentin Tarantino
Cast: Brad Pitt, Mélanie Laurent, Christoph Waltz, Eli Roth, Michael Fassbender, Diane Kruger, Daniel Brühl, Til Schweiger, B.J. Novak, Sylvester Groth, Julie Dreyfus, Richard Sammel, Samm Levine, Paul Rust, Christian Berkel, Léa Seydoux, Ludger Pistor, Rainer Bock, Mike Myers (Cameo), Rod Taylor (Cameo), Harvey Keitel (Voice Cameo), Samuel L. Jackson (Narrator)

It occurred to me the other day that Quentin Tarantino is a very lucky man.

I don’t mean to say that he’s lucky because of where he’s gotten to; I’m saying that because of where he’s gotten to, he’s lucky.

What do I mean?

Well, as far as I can tell, as a writer and director, Quentin Tarantino:
a. is generally loved by critics
b. is generally loved by audiences
c. generally makes financially successful movies (maybe not blockbusters, but certainly no albatrosses either)
d. is generally considered to be a serious artist
and,
e. makes the movies he wants to make.

For a director to achieve such lofty status for a fleeting moment, let alone maintain it for over two decades, is a stunning accomplishment. I mean, think about how many writer/directors who have had huge breakout hits in the past 25 years and who are now relegated to the garbage heap (The Wachowskis; M. Night Shyamalan; Bryan Singer, etc). And yet, time after time, ol’ QT keeps churning out impeccable films.

That’s not to say he isn’t human. In fact, you could argue that previous to the release of Inglourious Basterds he was in the biggest slump of his career, at least since he’d hit it big with Reservoir Dogs. You see, after the turn of the new millennium, Tarantino was basically untouchable: Kill Bill had put him on top of the world; he was a special guest director for Sin City, which gave him some of that all-important “comic book cred”; and, apparently, he made, like, the best episode ever of CSI or something (I’ve never seen it, but I believe it).

Then along came a little passion project called Grindhouse, where he and Robert Rodriguez got together to make their own personal double feature, each of them directing one.

Now, look, I don’t know Quentin Tarantino personally, so I don’t know if he took it hard or anything when Grindhouse didn’t do that well, but I do know that in the eyes of the movie-going public his reputation took somewhat of a hit. For one thing, his Death Proof was totally outshined by Rodriguez’s Planet Terror, because Planet Terror on the whole is a more entertaining watch, not to mention actually closer to the “grindhouse” theme they were going for (although, as an aside, the best modern “grindhouse” film has got to be Black Dynamite, but I digress).

Death Proof isn’t a bad movie; in fact it’s pretty good. The dialogue scenes are classic Tarantino, and the action scenes are quite impressive. The real problem is that it might be “too good” (or, rather, too polished) for what it was trying to be. And really, I think the whole Grindhouse project may have been a few years ahead of it’s time, but that’s speculative on my part.

ANYWAY, all of this brings us to Inglourious Basterds (aka Quentin Tarantino’s comeback special).

So, because I have a history degree, whenever the subject of this particular movie comes up, people often ask me what I think. In fact, I’ve had at least one person INSIST to me that I should hate it because of its “historical inaccuracy.”

The truth is, the fact that Inglourious Basterds is “historically inaccurate” is irrelevant, because it was never trying to be factual in the first place. Historical fiction (heck, even historical fantasy) doesn’t have to be perfect. It just needs to get certain details right, and, as far as I can tell, all of the costumes, weapons, and other equipment are all period authentic; and that’s what matters.

I mean, do people rag on Kelly’s Heroes because it’s not historically accurate? Who cares? It’s entertainment.

(Now, listen. If you’re going to base something on actual events, like Band of Brothers, or set a fictional story within actual events, like Saving Private Ryan, then the standard is definitely higher; but movies like Inglourious Basterds, Kelly’s Heroes, and The Dirty Dozen are different animals.)

So, what makes Inglourious Basterds Tarantino’s possible masterpiece?

Well, pretty much all the same elements that make most other Tarantino movies his possible masterpiece.

Before going to the special screening of Inglourious Basterds that I attended this past week, I went back and re-watched all of his big movies up to that point, and something I noticed about Reservoir Dogs became a recurring theme: most Quentin Tarantino films feature dialogue that’s so well-written, they could each be adapted as stage plays with little difficulty. Sure, a few scenes here and there you’d have to work around, or excise entirely, but the audience would get the point nonetheless.

There’s no doubt that Inglourious Basterds was marketed as something akin to Kill Bill, and there’s definitely some shocking violence along those lines, but on the whole it’s much closer to Tarantino’s earlier work: an out-of-order story told in maybe ten or so actual scenes, most of which consist of gripping dialogue. The real twist with Basterds is that so much of it is subtitled, but therein lies the genius of the writer/director.

Now, I don’t want to give all the credit here to Tarantino, because the performances are pretty much impeccable across the board. I mean, this is the movie that put both Michael Fassbender and Christoph Watlz on the map (and thank God for that). The only real downer for me is Brad Pitt’s accent; it’s just a little too grating for my taste. That, and B.J. Novak is kind of a strange casting choice (although not totally without logic). And maybe Eli Roth could have done a little better. But, really, beyond that, I don’t have much negative to say about this movie, because it’s awesome.

In fact, in terms of individually gripping scenes that I could watch over and over again, I’d put Inglourious Basterds on par with No Country For Old Men. Maybe Tarantino and the Coen Brothers should team up someday…

So, the question is, is Inglourious Basterds Tarantino’s definitive masterpiece?

I think the answer is: there is no answer.

I could argue just as easily for Reservoir Dogs, Pulp Fiction, Jackie Brown, and Kill Bill, not to mention Django Unchained. I guess it really just comes down to your personal tastes. And that’s one more reason why Quentin Tarantino is a very lucky man.

Rating: ★★★★½

P.S. If you loved Wolfenstein 3D, you have no good excuse for not loving Inglourious Basterds as well.

Twofer Movie Review: ‘X-Men: Days of Future Past’ and ‘Godzilla’ (2014) – Why So Boring?

I never anticipated that I’d be formally reviewing these two movies, as I’m trying to stick to ground less traveled here, but I had the…experience…of seeing both this past week, and they coaxed almost the exact same reaction out of me: disappointment.

X-Men: Days of Future Past and the new Godzilla are the latest members of a growing and increasingly wearisome club of “big” summer movies whose trailers make them look fantastic, but the movies themselves leave much to be desired (perhaps the most notable example of this from 2013 is Man of Steel, though at least the first half is worth watching). I understand movies are a business, but at this point I’m just tired of all the lies.

So, here I am, reviewing these films that many, many people have seen already, but I want to warn others while they’re still at risk of wasting their time and money.

Directed by Bryan Singer
Written by Simon Kinberg (Screenplay and Story), Jane Goldman and Matthew Vaughn (Story)
Cast: Hugh Jackman, James McAvoy, Michael Fassbender, Jennifer Lawrence, Halle Berry, Nicholas Hoult, Ellen Page, Peter Dinklage, Shawn Ashmore, Omar Sy, Evan Peters, Josh Helman, Ian McKellen, Patrick Stewart, Famke Janssen, James Marsden, Lucas Till, Daniel Cudmore, Booboo Stewart, Michael Lerner
Soundtrack: John Ottman

I had such high hopes…

Before I get too ahead of myself here, I will point out two scenes in this movie that are quite well done, without spoiling too much (not that it really matters):
1. An action scene that takes place in a famous government building where our heroes have to break someone out. It is the best scene in the film (though not worth the price of admission), and makes great use of Quicksilver (Marvel’s version of The Flash, if you don’t know).
2. A more poignant scene where the two Xaviers (past and future) are talking to one another. It’s the only scene that really connects on an emotional level to any significant degree.

That’s about it. Two scenes.

The basic premise of this movie (we need to fix the past in order to save the future) is interesting enough to keep you going for the lengthy running time; I was never so bored that I just wanted to go to sleep, but there’s a substantial gap between being passively interested and actively invested, and this movie consistently fails to fill it. If I was so inclined, I could complain about lots of things like plot holes, anachronisms, and various other X-Men problems that I know nothing about, but even before all of that, this movie constantly fails to be compelling. I was expecting Days of Future Past to be big and emotional; it is neither of those.

Whatever needs to happen to advance the story happens in short order, leaving very little room for dramatic tension. We need to find the professor? We find the professor. We need to find Eric? We find Eric. We need them to reconcile? They reconcile in two minutes (even though “they’ve never been further apart”). And so on and so forth. Not only that, but they couldn’t seem to figure out an interesting way of delivering mass exposition, which leads to more tedium as a viewer.

Now, again, I know very little about X-Men, and I’ve certainly never read the Days of Future Past storyline in the comics, so I can’t tell you how good of an adaptation the movie is, but, you know what? I know very little about Captain America and S.H.I.E.L.D., and I really enjoyed The Winter Soldier. I know very little about Iron Man, and all three of those movies are fantastic (Iron Man 2 is actually my favorite of the trilogy). All four of the movies I just mentioned work as movies first and worry about the other comic book stuff later, therefore I recommend all of them, but I cannot recommend this new X-Men film (outside of a Netflix/Redbox sort of viewing if you’re that curious). X-Men: First Class had its problems, and I did not recommend seeing it in a theater when it came out, but there are at least some compelling storylines and interesting cinematic goings-on to get you moderately invested; it’s not a total flop. I can’t say the same for Days of Future Past. Ordinarily I’d offer up some sort of suggestion on how to improve the film, but I honestly don’t know about this one outside of having a completely different creative team leading the charge.

Frankly, and this will sound harsh, I think Bryan Singer himself might be the biggest problem here. Now, he did write and direct the first two X-Men films, and they’re solid, I guess (it’s been a while since I’ve watched them), but on the whole I think his career path is much closer to M. Night Shyamalan than his hero, Richard Donner. I suppose based on his original X-Men work he was able to wrangle a lot of creative control for Superman Returns, and that movie suffers many of the same problems as Days of Future Past. Granted, I really enjoyed it when I first saw it in theaters, but I was a younger man, and highly nostalgic for Superman I and II; watching it again though, that movie’s a mess (Lex Luthor wants real estate again, really?), and a good chunk of the running time simply isn’t compelling. I can understand the studio’s desire to return to the guy that put X-Men on the cinematic map, but, at this point, it seems that Bryan Singer is damaged goods, at least for superhero movies.

★★☆☆☆

Directed by Gareth Edwards
Written by Max Borenstein (Screenplay), Dave Callaham (Story)
Cast: Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Ken Watanabe, Elizabeth Olsen, Bryan Cranston, Juliette Binoche, CJ Adams, Sally Hawkins, David Strathairn, Richard T. Jones, Victor Rasuk, Jared Keeso
Soundtrack: Alexandre Desplat

The most common comment (and I uttered it myself many a time) I heard in anticipation of Godzilla was, “Bryan Cranston’s in it,” and that is a true statement; Bryan Cranston is in the new Godzilla, and he’s really good in it when he’s in it, but he’s not in it nearly enough to save it.

This movie started off with a lot of promise. In the first 15 minutes or so, we see that Bryan Cranston plays an engineer at a nuclear power plant in Japan who’s concerned about a repeating pattern of seismic tremors (whose origins we as the audience already know something about) that might cause his plant some trouble. Sure enough, he’s right, and the plant suffers a terrible accident as a result of a mysterious earthquake, and, of course, this comes at a great personal cost to our beloved engineer.

BOOM. That’s a great intro, and a great way to get your audience invested into your movie. BUT, they then proceed to almost immediately scrap that for a shift in perspective to a different character. Bryan Cranston’s engineer comes back for a little bit, and you find out what he’s been doing for the past 15 years and it leads to the next plot point, but after that he’s done. See ya never.

This is my first big problem with this film. They get you emotionally invested, but then throw it away and give you characters that you just don’t care about; you can’t care about them, at least not in the same way. The engineer’s character’s arc coulda/shoulda/woulda made up the whole movie, or at least the first half of it. But jettisoning it so quickly into the run time (no matter who was playing him, really) was a huge mistake in the writing; and replacing him with such boring other characters compounds the problem further. Let him hang around a lot longer, and you’ve instantly got a better movie; hands down.

My second big issue is creature design; not so much for Godzilla, he looks alright, I guess, but the other creatures (this is not a spoiler; they’re in the trailer if you look close). They just look so generic, like they got focus-grouped to death or something. I don’t know, they just don’t look interesting or very creative. This is where maybe a little more liaising with Toho would have reaped huge benefits. I mean I know this is a ‘murican Godzilla movie, and I appreciate that they moved the story along more so than a standard reboot, but when your film features giant monsters, those monsters need to be engaging, and they almost completely failed in that respect.

My third and final problematic issue with Godzilla is too much tease and not enough payoff. Say what you want about Pacific Rim (I’m not that high on it myself, but it’s okay), but you can’t deny that they went all out when it came to showing you the monsters. Now I’m not saying Godzilla has to be that explicit, but the title of the movie is GODZILLA. A Godzilla movie should have the payoff of seeing Godzilla doing Godzilla things, and he does, eventually, but even when it’s an all-out brawl, they still cut away and tease you in the midst of it. It doesn’t come as a fully-satisfying payoff; it’s just more frustration at the end of an already frustrating movie.

What’s also frustrating is that they gave this movie to a promising young director, Gareth Edwards (not to be confused with Gareth Evans, who’s making the fantastic Raid series), whose first feature was also a monster movie called Monsters that appears to be much more worthwhile than Godzilla.

Now, is Godzilla a better movie than X-Men: Days of Future Past? Yes. It at least gives you an initial emotional connection, and though you’re largely waiting for something to happen, it does draw you back in a couple of times with legitimate suspense (something X-Men particularly fails to do); not to mention the visuals are much better on the whole. But it’s not good enough to warrant a better rating, unfortunately.

★★☆☆☆