Red State, USA, 2011

Written and Directed by Kevin Smith

Maybe the most interesting thing about Red State has less to do with the film that we watch, and more with the reaction it incites in critics. Upon its debut, it seemed that nobody could figure out what the film was supposed to be – horror, action, comedy, good, bad, watchable … Kevin Smith obviously knew what he was doing, but it’s almost like he refused to let anyone in on the joke. Oddly enough, though, it worked.

This is a film about sex, Adult Friend Finder, Christian extremism, the Westboro Baptist Church, the overuse of violence by our American government, terrorism, torture … and some more fun stuff. Smith said that the purpose of this film was to make his audience uncomfortable like, “when they go to sit in a chair, then I turn the chair over and they sit on one of the legs, and then we repeat the process.” That’s the essence of unpredictability, sure, but even a comedic director like Smith understands what horror movies are mostly about: obsession. 

The story centers around three teenage boys who decide to take a stupid road trip to go have sex until they’re kidnapped and tortured by psychos. If you’re thinking “Oh, great, because that totally doesn’t sound like every horror movie made in the last ten years,” let me keep going before you judge it. The film opens with a church protesting a gay teenager’s funeral (sound familiar?), then proceeds to meeting our characters and giving a bit of a political message as to what exactly is happening. We understand that there’s a local church that’s a bit nuts, but what we don’t know is that … well, let’s just say that if al-Qaeda were twenty white folks in a farmhouse … Our young boys are kidnapped, and the rest is cinematic history.

Before too long, there’s an interesting gunfight between the FBI, a bunch of white Christian terrorists, the kids, and … then after all Hell has broken loose, the world is just about to end … Kevin Smith’s Red State is a film of unfinished sentences, non-sequiturs, and ellipses. It’s like you watch someone fill up a balloon with nitroglycerin and throw it at someone, but you don’t get to witness what happens next. It’s explained instead. Don’t get me wrong, though – the last scene of this film has some of the best writing and acting of the year.

I try not to get too personal with my beliefs in my work, but I feel like I should state something here: I’m not ashamed of my Christian faith; have never been, and never will I be. What I am ashamed of, however, is that people like this exist in our world. The Westboro Baptist Church is an obvious inspiration for the group of people displayed in this film, and there are government officials who abuse their powers like the people put on display here, as well. This is a remarkably realistic film for something so preposterous and off-putting. Kudos to Kevin.

Contact the author: ScottMartin@MoviesIDidntGet.com

Carnage, France / Germany / Poland / Spain, 2011

Directed by Roman Polanski

We Need to Talk About Kevin, UK / USA, 2011

Directed by Lynn Ramsay 

The title of this piece is obviously a joke, as I have no concrete evidence to support the idea that the excellent actor John C. Reilly actually hates children. However, being born the fifth of six children and having now fathered two of his own, he undoubtedly related to some of the sentiments expressed in his two latest films, Roman Polanski’s Carnage and Lynn Ramsay’s We Need to Talk About Kevin, both of which provide starkly different perspectives on why it just might not be such a great idea to have kids. Carnage is very funny, while Kevin is dark, dark, dark – but the underlying insights about human nature in both are decidedly bleak and brutal, regardless of whether they are cushioned by humor or not.

Carnage is essentially a filmed version of Yasmina Reza’s play, The God of Carnage, from which it was adapted for the screen by Reza and Polanski. This means that it is carried more by the sharp, witty dialogue and strong performances more than anything else. Outside of bookending scenes shot at a playground in Central Park, the entirety of the 80-minute film takes place in the Brooklyn apartment of Michael and Penelope Longstreet (Reilly and the relatively reclusive Jodie Foster). Nancy and Alan Cowan (Kate Winslet and Christoph Waltz) are the parents of Zachary (Elvis Polanski), who is the antagonist in the playground squabble that begins the film, hitting Michael and Penelope’s son Ethan (Eliot Berger) in the face with a stick and damaging two of his teeth. We first encounter Nancy and Alan on their way out the door, having reached some sort of tenuous agreement about what must be done to solve this crisis in the most civilized manner possible, but various instigations of politeness and passive-aggressive pugilism keep them returning to the confines of the apartment, unable to put an end to the vicious social gamesmanship. Had he lived to see it, Luis Bunuel would undoubtedly have found this film very pleasing; I certainly did.

We Need to Talk About Kevin is a much more disturbing and expansive look at the terrible tolls of parenting, and whereas Carnage primarily explores the parents’ perspective and leaves the children’s world separate and unaffected, Kevin is very much about the influence parents can have on their children, whether intended or not. In its realistic take on the familiar horror trope of the “bad seed,” or evil child (not to be confused with the possessed or demonic child of The Exorcist or The Omen), this film recalls George Ratliff’s Joshua (2007), one of the most unabashedly anti-family films since Joseph Ruben’s classic thriller The Stepfather (1987). Like the baby Joshua in that film, little Kevin is a source of constant torment for his mother, Eva (the great Tilda Swinton), right from the moment he is born. Unlike Joshua, though, his incessant crying and generally antagonistic demeanor seems to be reserved entirely for his mother; when his father, Franklin (Reilly) holds him as a baby, his crying stops, only to return with a vengeance as soon as Eva comes near. This basic attitude continues through his toddler years and all the way up until he is a teenager (when he is played by Ezra Miller, star of Antonio Campos’s Afterschool – http://moviesididntget.com/2011/09/09/intense-style-afterschool-love-is-the-devil/).

The story of Kevin is told in a compellingly non-linear fashion, with Ramsay’s visual style complementing this approach in such a way that the viewer is immersed in Eva’s perspective, the past blending with the present in a dreamlike haze. This method and style of storytelling recalls no recent film more than Sean Durkin’s Martha Marcy May Marlene (http://moviesididntget.com/2011/11/28/martha-marcy-may-marlene), which similarly dealt with a character struggling to come to terms with a traumatic, violent past. Perhaps because of this specific perspective, which is Eva’s, it is difficult not to identify and sympathize with her, first and foremost. Regardless what truths about her relationship with Kevin and the level of culpability she shares in his horrific deeds – which are wisely shown mostly in brief glimpses – the Kevin we are shown is undoubtedly a cold, calculating, vicious monster. The very disquieting question left bubbling under the surface is how much of his monstrosity is simply a reflection of his mother’s feelings toward him; she never wanted a child, was happier without him, so he makes it his life’s mission to make her truly regret ever giving him life.

It is no great feat for Carnage to be the lighter of these two films, since it is, after all, a comedy, but I hasten to reiterate what a truly dark comedy it is. There is a fierce, boiling rage under the surface of the two wealthy, civilized couples in the film, and as they continually strive to assert their moral dominance over one another, the teams change and new bonds and enmities are formed based on gender lines, intellectual biases and political beliefs. The supposedly grown up protagonists of both films are far more confused and volatile than their own children, and perhaps it is their bitterness at having forever lost that far simpler time in their own lives that makes them resent the wee ones. Dealing with the familiar frustrations and indignities of being a parent (both films prominently feature pet hamsters and the cleaning up of vomit), it is amazing that anyone, parent or child, manages to live with a modicum of sanity or civilization.

Ezra Stead is the Head Editor for MoviesIDidntGet.com. Ezra is also a screenwriter, actor, filmmaker, rapper and poet who has been previously published in print and online, as well as writing, directing and acting in numerous short films and two features. A Minneapolis native, Ezra currently lives in Brooklyn, New York.

For more information, please contact EzraStead@MoviesIDidntGet.com.

The Arbor, UK, 2010

Directed by Clio Barnard

Certified Copy, France / Italy / Belgium, 2010

Written and Directed by Abbas Kiarostami

I am continually amazed by the odd synchronicities (or coincidences, if you insist) that crop up in my seemingly random viewing habits. For some reason, even when I’m not trying to, I often end up viewing two or more films within a short period of time that seem to have nothing to do with one another, only to suddenly find striking comparison points between them. Two of the past year’s best films – Clio Barnard’s The Arbor and Abbas Kiarostami’s Certified Copy – are a prime example of this phenomenon. Having been attracted to the latter based on what I had heard about its unusual approach to the documentary form, I watched it and thoroughly enjoyed it. Only the next day, I finally got around to Certified Copy, one of 2011′s other most acclaimed films, and found that it also had a very interesting formalistic approach that directly informed and commented upon its subject matter. Let’s start with The Arbor.

Clio Barnard’s debut feature takes an unusual, but not unprecedented, approach to the documentary film: rather than interspersing “talking head” interviews with archival footage or dramatic reenactments, as more conventional documentaries generally do, Barnard created a sort of “audio screenplay” out of her recorded interviews, then employed trained actors to lip-sync the parts of the film’s real-life subjects. The result is both engaging and somewhat distancing, and manages to comment on the documentary form itself while simultaneously unfolding a compelling, harrowing story. The specific story is that of British playwright Andrea Dunbar (seen in archival interviews and other footage), whose work – including a play entitled The Arbor – is largely autobiographical, and the family she left behind when she died at the age of 29. Each of her three children had a different father, and they often disagree about what kind of mother she was, but the film primarily focuses on eldest daughter Lorraine (Manjinder Virk), who was fathered by a Pakistani man named Yousaf (Jimi Mistry). This mixed-race pairing was the source of a great deal of harassment and ridicule in the working class British town for which The Arbor is named, and young Lorraine grew up with the same sort of harsh treatment, which undoubtedly contributed to the drug addiction, depression and imprisonment that occupied much of her adult life.

The really interesting thing about this film is the way in which its technique, its form, is uniquely suited to telling this story. Despite taking place in a specific time and place, the mixed emotions and familial strife portrayed are universal; the working class neighborhood and people on display are the stuff of films by Mike Leigh and Ken Loach, but like those great filmmakers, Barnard subtly connects their lives to the human experience shared by the viewer. This is done in part by the very technique that makes her film so unique – we are constantly aware that the people onscreen are merely actors going through the motions of pre-recorded dialogue, but rather than completely distancing us from the emotional impact of the story being told, this knowledge only serves to increase our empathy. The fact that Andrea Dunbar’s work as a playwright was itself an attempt to communicate her own experience through surrogates makes this the perfect way in which to tell her story and that of her fascinating, dysfunctional family.

Abbas Kiarostami’s first film outside of his native Iran takes a similar formal approach to its subject matter. Beginning with the question of the validity of a copy or reproduction of an artistic work, as expounded by art historian James Miller (William Shimell), the film proceeds to explore this idea as applied to life itself, and its narrative as well as its cinematic form continuously return to the central idea of Miller’s argument: that the value of the reproduction, or copy, is that it can lead one to the original. Formally, this is expressed in a number of interesting ways, such as repeated compositions, dialogue alternating between no fewer than three languages throughout, and framing techniques that accentuate the subtext of the dialogue. Perhaps most striking is a scene in which Elle (Juliette Binoche) applies makeup in the middle of a long day spent with Miller, presumably in order to present to him a “copy” of her true self that will make him more inclined to seek out the original, the “real” her. The exact nature of their relationship is kept intentionally ambiguous; at first, it seems that they have only just met, but by the end it seems certain that they have known one another for years. Are they a long-married couple playing at a first meeting, or the reverse? The film delights in obscuring, rather than revealing the answer, and this is just one of many ways in which it playfully delves into the nature of reality. After all, what is memory if not a partially inaccurate copy of a past reality? Is it worse than the real thing because of its inaccuracy, or does that very inaccuracy often make it better?

Above all, Certified Copy is a film of ideas, and it comfortably settles in alongside Louis Malle’s My Dinner with Andre (1981) and Richard Linklater’s Before Sunrise (1995), Waking Life (2001), and Before Sunset (2004) as one of the great conversation films of all time. Both Certified Copy and The Arbor consist largely of talking heads, but their unusual formal techniques combine with the fascinating subject matter at their core to make each film vital and far from boring. By the end of each, I found myself overwhelmed by the power with which those mere talking heads had gripped my imagination – The Arbor with its immediate and uncompromised window into the pain of the human soul, and Certified Copy with its striking ambiguity and insight into the realities we construct for ourselves. Of the two, Certified Copy seems to cry out the most for a second viewing, not only to further parse its many layers of meaning and subtext, but also because it is just so stimulating and enjoyable.

Ezra Stead is the Head Editor for MoviesIDidntGet.com. Ezra is also a screenwriter, actor, filmmaker, rapper and poet who has been previously published in print and online, as well as writing, directing and acting in numerous short films and two features. A Minneapolis native, Ezra currently lives in Brooklyn, New York.

For more information, please contact EzraStead@MoviesIDidntGet.com.

Let’s stray from the beaten path for a while, shall we? Instead of a review in the usual format, today I’d like to offer up thoughts on over 25 films, mostly some of my favorites, but with a few that I love to hate thrown in for good measure. Only a few of these actually work as reviews; most are free-form poetic interpretations of the feelings they brought up in me. Some are just plain silly. At any rate, all are written in the form of the ancient Japanese art of haiku. For those who don’t know, that means five syllables in the first line, seven in the next, and another five in the last, preferably with some sort of twist in the last line or, failing that, at least a sense of poetry throughout. Almost all of these were written sometime in 2005, which explains why there are three inspired by Frank Miller’s Sin City, my favorite film that year. Links to longer pieces on some of the films are provided after their titles. Let’s begin with a couple of actual Japanese films:

The net is vast and / infinite. Now that we two / have merged, where to go?
– Ghost in the Shell (1995)

Tetsuo – not the / Iron Man, but a bike punk / transcends earthly life.
– Akira (1988)

From the dawn of time / Man is born of violence / even HAL’s not pure.
– 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) – http://moviesididntget.com/2011/02/11/loving-the-bomb-technology-and-conquest-in-the-films-of-stanley-kubrick

Frank the bunny says / “Why do you wear that stupid / man suit?” Donnie shrugs.
– Donnie Darko (2001)

More human than a / human is what we were to / be, like tears in rain.
– Blade Runner (1982)

My Valkyrie is / sexy and bloodthirsty; mine / always and never.
– Frank Miller’s Sin City (2005)

You think you know truth / but I’ll show you what you are. / Inherit evil.
– The Addiction (1995)

Alex and his droogs / beat and rape people to the / tune of Ludwig van.
– A Clockwork Orange (1971) – http://moviesididntget.com/2011/02/11/loving-the-bomb-technology-and-conquest-in-the-films-of-stanley-kubrick

George Lucas gets rich / off the money of geeks who / pay to live the past.
– Star Wars Episodes I-III (1999-2005)

“Me love you long time,” / she said. His camera was / stolen, like his soul.
– Full Metal Jacket (1987) – http://moviesididntget.com/2011/06/17/the-art-of-darkness-apocalypse-now-full-metal-jacket

I only came to / do two things: kick ass and chew / gum. I’m out of gum.
– John Carpenter’s They Live (1988)

Napoleon’s got / skills: dancing, drawing, nun-chucks / plus tether-ball! Sweet!
– Napoleon Dynamite (2004)

Tom Edison is / not like his namesake; his sole / invention is lies.
– Dogville (2003)

On surveying his / new home, B.J. merely says / “Nice f**kin’ model!”
– Beetlejuice (1988)

“What’s a tortoise?” he / asks with mock stupidity. / Don’t ask about Mom.
– Blade Runner (1982)

Henry is awkward / to say the least. Suited for / fatherhood he’s not.
– Eraserhead (1977)

An old man dies, a / young girl lives; fair trade. The life / of a decent cop.
– Frank Miller’s Sin City (2005)

So damn stupid, you’d / have to be eight to like it / this movie sucks hard.
– The Goonies (1985) – http://moviesididntget.com/2011/03/14/the-goonies-much-worse-than-you-remember

Like The Goonies with / vampires and thus, much better. / Corey Feldman rocks!
– The Lost Boys (1987)

Glitter-skinned vampires / play baseball in storms and don’t / drink human blood. Lame!

– Twilight (2008)

Best film ever, or / worst? You decide. (You suck if / you pick the latter.)
–  The Toxic Avenger (1984)

And it comes clear like / it did the first time: my one / true calling in life.
–  Natural Born Killers (1994)

“Don’t be a …” she says / drawing a square in the air. / Her O.D.’s less cute.
– Pulp Fiction (1994)

“You’re so cool.” The last / words he hears as things go black. / Does he live or die?
– True Romance (1993)

Norman’s a good boy. / At least, his mother thinks so. / Sure, she’s still alive.
– Psycho (1960)

“Rosebud” his last word. / But what does it mean? Nothing / and everything, too.
– Citizen Kane (1941) – http://moviesididntget.com/2011/07/29/absolute-corruption-three-films-about-power

In space, no one can / hear you scream, but they all do / anyway. Funny.
– Alien (1979)

They mostly come out / at night. Mostly. Only the / women understand.
– Aliens (1986)

Silence now; no air / to breathe. Steely fingers save / me – little Mijo.

– Frank Miller’s Sin City (2005)

Kate Winslet is hot / naked on the Titanic. / Leonardo dies.
– Titanic (1997)

Ezra Stead is the Head Editor for MoviesIDidntGet.com. Ezra is also a screenwriter, actor, filmmaker, rapper and poet who has been previously published in print and online, as well as writing, directing and acting in numerous short films and two features. A Minneapolis native, Ezra currently lives in Brooklyn, New York.

For more information, please contact EzraStead@MoviesIDidntGet.com.

A Dangerous Method, UK / Germany / Canada / Switzerland, 2011

Directed by David Cronenberg 

A Dangerous Method could be called the final film in director David Cronenberg’s Viggo Mortensen trilogy. Beginning with 2005′s A History of Violence, Cronenberg has used the estimable actor in each film he’s made up until now, with the brief exception of his short film for the 2007 anthology To Each His Own Cinema (the wonderfully titled “At the Suicide of the Last Jew in the World in the Last Cinema in the World”), in which only Cronenberg himself starred. This triptych of films, which also includes 2007′s Russian mob story Eastern Promises, marks a distinct departure from the type of filmmaking that made Cronenberg’s name synonymous with gruesome, highly physical horror – see masterpieces like Scanners (1981), Videodrome (1983), The Fly (1986) and Dead Ringers (1988) – and ever more into the territory of restrained human drama. While it lacks some of the visceral punches (the “Cronenberg touches,” as many reviewers called them) found in the previous two films, Method is probably the most consistent and accomplished work, and though it is certainly a bit drier, it is no less consummately entertaining.

Though I enjoyed both of his previous two features and certainly don’t begrudge Cronenberg his ambition to be recognized by the “respectable” critical establishment as one of the very best filmmakers working today (a fact of which the gore-hound community has already long been aware), I had a few misgivings about each of the other Viggo pictures, none of which related to the man’s excellent performances. Though I thoroughly admired History‘s frank sexuality and often surprisingly subtle examination of a man trying to escape his past, I also felt it was slightly mired down by a few implausibilities and genre cliches, culminating in William Hurt’s ridiculously overwrought (and overrated) performance as mob boss Richie Cusack in the film’s final act. Promises, on the other hand, suffered, for me, from that rarest of all critical complaints: it was too damn short. What could have easily been the best gangster epic since Martin Scorsese’s Goodfellas (1990) ends shortly after its most exhilarating moment, and just before it could have gone into a whole new, extremely intriguing fourth act. Instead of a lengthy, absorbing, Shakespearean saga, it is a solid 100-minute movie with a great performance from Mortensen and a few brilliant moments.

Method strays farther than ever from the sort of thing for which Cronenberg is traditionally known, avoiding grotesque violence entirely and even, surprisingly for a Cronenberg film that tackles the subject of psychoanalysis, eschewing any surreal dream imagery in favor of a witty, character-driven ensemble piece examining the relationship between Sigmund Freud (Mortensen), Carl Jung (Michael Fassbender) and the patient who brings them together and, in a way, ultimately tears them apart, Sabina Spielrein (Keira Knightley). Spielrein initially seeks treatment with Jung for debilitating neuroses that manifest themselves in strange, seizure-like physical behaviors, and together they begin to discover the root causes in the sexual excitement she received from humiliations and physical abuse at the hands of her father. She is no weak-willed victim, however, and soon Jung finds himself in an obsessive, guilt-ridden affair with her, while simultaneously encouraging her to become the great psychoanalyst she eventually became.

Jung’s relationship with Freud begins as a marathon 13-hour conversation, and detractors of the film could easily complain that it is too “talky.” The screenplay was adapted by Christopher Hampton from John Kerr’s book, A Most Dangerous Method, as well as his own play, The Talking Cure, and it has the feel of a play in much the same way as other excellent stage-to-screen adaptations like Roman Polanski’s Death and the Maiden (1994) and Richard Linklater’s Tape (2001). However, Cronenberg’s eye for composition is always subtly on display, and he and longtime cinematographer Peter Suschitzky keep the proceedings from getting too stagy or non-cinematic. Scenes set in Vienna’s Belvedere Gardens are especially gorgeous and, in context, evocative of the maze-like mental structures which Freud and Jung seek to explore.

Above all, though, this is an actor’s movie, and while Knightley gives undoubtedly her best performance to date and has the most scenery to chew, Mortensen’s calmly arrogant Freud and Fassbender’s subtle but constant inner turmoil as Jung are equally fascinating to watch. Perhaps most enjoyable of all, though, is the great French actor Vincent Cassel, returning to Cronenberg’s repertoire from Eastern Promises, this time as anarchistic Freud disciple Otto Gross, who undergoes analysis with Jung early in the film. Perhaps it is mainly that his unconventional views of sexuality and society are most in line with my own, but it is a wonderfully roguish and delightful performance that, for me, is over all too soon, basically a cameo made by unvarnished id amongst the three-way battle between the egos of Freud, Jung and Spielrein.

Ezra Stead is the Head Editor for MoviesIDidntGet.com. Ezra is also a screenwriter, actor, filmmaker, rapper and poet who has been previously published in print and online, as well as writing, directing and acting in numerous short films and two features. A Minneapolis native, Ezra currently lives in Brooklyn, New York.

For more information, please contact EzraStead@MoviesIDidntGet.com.

Transformers, USA, 2007

Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, USA, 2009

Directed by Michael Bay

With the latest Michael Bay monstrosity, Transformers: Dark of the Moon, taking more than a billion dollars at the box office and potentially remaining the top-grossing movie of this year (please, please, prove me wrong, awards season), now would be a good time to revisit the first two, which might help explain why I have sworn off the third one, or any future editions. I hope no one thinks I’m a snob just for occasionally displaying some standard of good taste. Remember, I love The Toxic Avenger (1984) and The Lost Boys (1987), not to mention much lower quality films like The Room (2003) and Birdemic: Shock and Terror (http://moviesididntget.com/2011/04/13/birdemic-shock-and-terror/), so I’m not always too pretentious for a good time with a bad movie.

Transformers (2007) is the somewhat enjoyable but wildly overlong story of a high school kid unfortunately named Sam Witwicky (Shia LaBeouf) and his love affair with his car … I mean, Mikaela Banes (Megan Fox), a sultry, sexy cheerleader who is considered out of his league until he acquires a sleek, sexy ’70s Camaro named Bumblebee (voiced by Mark Ryan). Yeah, sure, it’s the girl Sam – and most of this film’s target audience – wants to have sex with, not the car. Whatever. Anyway, despite what audiences might expect or want, and what they may have been led to believe by the film’s trailer, the first Transformers movie spends an inordinate amount of time on Sam and his “beard,” Mikaela, leaving most of the actual Transformers to be little more than comic relief in their own movie, at least until the last twenty minutes or so, when they finally get around to engaging in the patented Michael Bay orgy-of-loud-shiny-excess-action-sequence, as seen in even worse movies like Bad Boys II (2003).

Making the Autobots (they’re the good guys) comic relief might have been a good idea if they were actually funny. Instead, they are a collection of lowest common denominator cliches, with Bay and his two screenwriters, Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman, proving they are not too proud to mine cheap yuks from the bodily functions of chihuahuas. One of the few bright points of the film is John Turturro’s performance as Agent Simmons, an eccentric government man who gets the best moment of the film when he says, referring to Mikaela, “She’s a criminal, and criminals are hot!” Turturro delivers this line with the kind of manic intensity that made him famous in early work like Tony Bill’s Five Corners (1987), and he seems to be one of the few actors having a good time and not taking anything too seriously. By the time we reach the climactic, twenty minute battle scene, it’s hard not to be too bored and numb to care about the spectacle, which is technically impressive, to be sure.

As basically crappy as Transformers is, it is a true masterpiece of cinema compared to its sequel, Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen. This one just might be the worst movie I’ve ever seen. It’s definitely the loudest, dumbest and most boring. Just painful to watch. By the end, I felt suicidal, but I was too numb to do anything about that feeling. Much has been said, quite accurately, of this film’s sexism and racism, but beyond that, I just can’t help but wonder: how can a movie this stupid be this long? How can a movie about giant alien robots fighting each other take itself so seriously? Why waste an epic length on something without a shred of decent character development or even a coherent story?

I won’t waste your time or mine trying to recount the so-called plot of this movie, especially since its three screenwriters (apparently two cooks were not enough to spoil the broth last time) can’t seem to be bothered making any of it coherent anyway. Suffice to say, there are robots, stuff blows up, and I can’t waste any more time with this franchise, even if they did add Frances McDormand, John Malkovich and Alan Tudyk to the latest installment. At eighty minutes, this would still be a terrible movie, but at 150 it is like having your psyche relentlessly bludgeoned by an exceptionally stupid sledgehammer. For some reason, Rainn Wilson also appears briefly; I love him as Dwight Schrute on The Office but he seems to only make cameos in terrible but highly successful movies (see also, Juno – http://moviesididntget.com/2011/06/08/juno-worst-hipster-movie-ever-so-far). This is, sadly, one of the top hundred highest-grossing films of all time; therefore, I will die in poverty.

Ezra Stead is the Head Editor for MoviesIDidntGet.com. Ezra is also a screenwriter, actor, filmmaker, rapper and poet who has been previously published in print and online, as well as writing, directing and acting in numerous short films and two features. A Minneapolis native, Ezra currently lives in Brooklyn, New York.

For more information, please contact EzraStead@MoviesIDidntGet.com.

My Week with Marilyn, UK / UA, 2011

Directed by Simon Curtis

Marilyn Monroe was my first real crush, even before I really knew what a crush was. I grew up on old movies, which is probably the reason I still find the image of a woman smoking with a cocktail in the other hand extremely sexy, and no woman on the silver screen from that golden era long before I was born held the mysterious, seductive allure of Marilyn. Three of her films in particular were my childhood obsessions: Otto Preminger’s River of No Return (1954), Billy Wilder’s Some Like It Hot (1959) and John Huston’s The Misfits (1961), which turned out to be her final feature. Of course, there were other favorites, especially Howard Hawks’s Monkey Business (1952) and Wilder’s The Seven Year Itch (1955), but those three really captured her sweet vulnerability, her almost oblivious sensuality, and the soft sadness behind her alluring smile, an indication of the hard life she had lived and, as my young mind and these films dared to hope, had now left behind. In reality, of course, poor Marilyn’s life only got harder, until it was snuffed out all too soon.

One of Marilyn’s films I still have yet to see is Laurence Olivier’s The Prince and the Showgirl (1957), a light romantic comedy made at the peak of Marilyn’s career, and around the middle of Olivier’s. Simon Curtis’s My Week with Marilyn centers around the tumultuous production of this film, and the brief, unforgettable time Marilyn (Michelle Williams) spent with third assistant director Colin Clark (Eddie Redmayne) while her husband, the great playwright Arthur Miller (Dougray Scott), was away from the production. Kenneth Branagh delivers a lovably overstated performance (as usual) as Olivier, an actor to whom he was favorably compared in his early days, especially with the release of his breakthrough Shakespeare adaptation Henry V (1989), and it is difficult to imagine anyone else in the role. Physically, the amazing Michael Fassbender would seem an apt choice, but Branagh chews scenery and spout Shakespeare like no other, and anyway, Fassbender has been way too busy lately.

Obviously, the draw of this film is Williams’s performance as Marilyn, which is an uncanny achievement. Like Branagh as Olivier, it is not so much a striking physical resemblance (Mad Men‘s Christina Hendricks would clearly be a better choice for that) as it is a profound immersion in the character. Though she doesn’t really look like Marilyn, Williams has the voice and mannerisms down so perfectly that at times I literally forgot that I was watching what could unkindly be called an impersonation and felt as if I were actually seeing long-lost, impossibly candid footage of the great woman herself, the highest compliment that could be paid to a performance like this. It is similar to Cate Blanchett’s brilliant turn as Katharine Hepburn in Martin Scorsese’s The Aviator (2005), though Blanchett looks even less like her subject, and of course Katharine Hepburn never broke a nation’s heart with her untimely death (since she lived to the ripe old age of 748).

As is said of Marilyn herself by her co-star, Dame Sybil Thorndike (Judi Dench) in the film, when Williams is onscreen, nothing else matters. It is impossible not to identify with Colin as he falls hopelessly in love with Marilyn because, well, how could he not? At the same time, it is a doomed, tragic love, not only because Marilyn is already married to Miller, but because she could never seem to truly love herself. She voraciously sought and received the adoration of the world, but the constant attention only made her unhappier. Her career and life were a vicious cycle of dependence not unlike the relationship of an addict to their drug of choice; Marilyn needed fame like a junkie needs heroin, and it destroyed her in the same seductive way. The film manages to capture this without resorting to blatant melodrama, and Williams’s performance sells it more than anything else.

I don’t mean to sell the rest of the film short; everything else about the film is solid as well, particularly its fine supporting performances by Dench, Dominic Cooper and Emma “Hermione Granger” Watson, as well as a superb cameo by British national treasure Derek Jacobi. Curtis does a good job of capturing the daily travails of studio filmmaking, and the era feels authentic. Credit should also be given to the makeup and lighting departments for their assistance in creating the central illusion of Marilyn, but ultimately, as with any kind of biopic, this film belongs to its star, and Williams carries the show. It is a remarkable, devastating performance that will undoubtedly be remembered when we get to Oscar time, and though she may not win this year (she’s already been nominated twice before, for her excellent work in 2005′s Brokeback Mountain and last year’s Blue Valentine – http://moviesididntget.com/2011/01/23/blue-valentine-is-this-you), it is to be fervently hoped that, unlike poor Marilyn, she will have decades more to amaze us all with her skill and talent.

Ezra Stead is the Head Editor for MoviesIDidntGet.com. Ezra is also a screenwriter, actor, filmmaker, rapper and poet who has been previously published in print and online, as well as writing, directing and acting in numerous short films and two features. A Minneapolis native, Ezra currently lives in Brooklyn, New York.

For more information, please contact EzraStead@MoviesIDidntGet.com.