All posts by maddwolf

All the Awkwardness, No Mashed Potato Bloat

Listen Up Philip

By Christie Robb

As we head into the holiday season, do you worry that your family and friends are just too delightful? Do you long for awkward stories to share with co-workers in the break room about the rude kids with eyes glued to their smart phones, cousin Stan’s narcissistic monologues about how much money he makes, and repressed childhood rage erupting over Pillsbury Crescent Rolls?

If so, Listen Up Philip might fill the void.

Dive into the life of notable author Philip Lewis Friedman (Jason Schwartzman) as he prepares to usher his second novel into publication. He’s got everything he wants: a New York apartment, a successful photographer girlfriend (Elizabeth Moss), and placement in a top 35 under 35 list.

But he is incapable of experiencing happiness, crippled with anxiety and dread.

When established-author Ike Zimmerman (Jonathan Pryce) offers him craft advice and a place to crash, Philip flees upstate to the country.  With misanthropic Zimmerman as a model, Philip fully begins to explore the dark and musty corners of his asshattery. And this after he has made two separate social engagements to berate an unsupportive ex and his less successful college roommate (“This could have been us! Instead, I’m all alone.”) and thrown a tantrum, refusing to promote his novel.

With Schwartzman playing a novelist you might think you’re in for the wacky hijinks of HBOs Bored to Death. With the delightful faux vintage book covers and narrator, you might think you stumbled on a Wes Anderson knockoff.

Nope.

Instead writer/director Alex Ross Perry, treats us to character studies of entitled, white males who operate like emotional vampires, sucking their intimate relationships (and the women recovering from them) dry to fuel their work. Don’t expect any reformed curmudgeons in this one.

Listen Up Philip is faultlessly acted and often darkly funny, tickling a malignant funny bone when Ike and Philip brazen past the social niceties. (At one point, when a student in his creative writing class asks Philip for a recommendation, he scolds her while shuffling around on his desk, then shoves a blank piece of paper at her, saying, “Here’s a piece of paper with staples in it.”)

You may recognize this kind of guy from your humanities classes. Maybe you had the misfortune to have one sidle up to you at a party. Or perhaps one is waiting for you to pass him the turkey.

 

Verdict-4-0-Stars

 


 

What a Long, Strange Trip

Interstellar

by Hope Madden

Christopher Nolan is nothing if not ambitious. He first wowed audiences with Memento, putting us in the shoes of our protagonist by telling his story backwards. Later he singlehandedly revolutionized the super hero film, then did it again, and then again. He also told the headiest tale imaginable about dreamshare technology, and pulled it off like some sort of magician. (He crafted a lovely tale about a magician somewhere in there, too.)

Well, Nolan is out to top all of that with an intergalactic drama that sees Matthew McConaughey heading into a wormhole to save the world.

In the unspecified future, the earth is seeing its last generation.  But Michael Caine (regular Nolan go-to) has concocted a plan to save humanity, and it involves sending McConaughey and a crew in search of a suitable replacement planet.

As perfunctorily SciFi as that all sounds, Nolan (scripting again with his brother Jonathan) can be trusted to spare no expense, establishing the earth’s plight realistically, outlining the likely-doomed mission with little hyperbole, and basically connecting his story to science so it never feels like Armageddon II.

Properly grounded, Nolan then sends us to the heavens.

The balls on this guy!

Wormholes, black holes, relativity, 5th dimensions, the time/space continuum – all of it handled with just enough layman’s terminology to make it palatable but not entirely understandable. It’s a trick he picked up with Inception, one of the cleverest SciFi adventures of modern cinema.

Like all galactic exercises worth their mettle, Interstellar borrows from and celebrates Kubrick, although Nolan’s film certainly never feels stale or derivative – more like the next logical step in SciFi.

The sounds and silence, the mind-bending imagery, the danger and loneliness – all of it impeccably, almost overwhelmingly captured.

It’s hard to watch the film without thinking of Alfonso Cuaron’s 2013 galactic masterpiece Gravity. One of that picture’s greatest strengths was its utter simplicity.

Nolan is not one for simplicity, and that need to complicate has a negative impact on his effort. Earthbound entanglements lose their draw in the face of the travelers’ peril, and Nolan and his terrestrial cast can’t compel attention or interest.

At home and in space, characters sometimes make unlikely yet convenient choices to further the story, which is a disappointment in a film otherwise so well crafted.

It’s also quite long and it feels long, but whatever its faults, you can credit Nolan for creating a genuine epic, and an experience filled with terrified wonder.

Verdict-3-5-Stars

High School Confidential

 

Laggies (aka Say When)

by George Wolf

Is this movie called Laggies, or Say When? What does “laggies” mean? And why couldn’t  someone think of a better title for that last Tom Cruise movie than Edge of Tomorrow?

Good questions. The answers are 1) Laggies in the U.S., Say When elsewhere  2) it’s Southern California slang for those who “lag behind” 3) no idea.

Really, the most important question for Laggies, and nearly all romantic comedies is: how well does it get to where you already know it’s going? That answer here is…pretty well.

Keira Knightley is Megan, a college grad caught in a twenty something life crisis. She helps out at her dad’s tax service and has a nice boyfriend and all, but she just can’t get enthused about the whole marriage/career/kids life plan that her friends are embracing.

Megan promises to buckle down and get with the program, even agreeing to go away for a week-long self-improvement seminar. Instead, she hides out at the home of Annika (Chloe Grace Moretz), a high schooler she met at the local mini-mart. Turns out, Annika could really use a positive female role model and her dad Craig (Sam Rockwell) is hip and single so, you know, cool.

Director Lynn Shelton (Your Sister’s Sister/Touchy Feely) provides the appropriate touch for a tale of three people at completely different points in life all looking for the same thing. Much like the characters, sometimes her film’s breezy wanderlust is refreshing, other times it yearns for the anchor of a more logical structure.

Andrea Seigel offers up a likable debut screenplay, often clever and amusing, made even more so by the talented cast. Knightley is at her most charming, as she and Rockwell, who continues to improve everything he’s in, display a winning chemistry. Just try and get through Craig’s interrogation of his daughter’s new, unusually older friend without smiling.

Moretz, again showing her recent stumble in If I Stay was an outlier, gives Annika a welcome authenticity, with humor and vulnerability that seem miles away from the usual teen caricatures populating movie screens.

Will you think about Laggies much after the lights come up? No, but you’ll probably enjoy the journey to an ending you’ve already guessed.

 

Verdict-3-0-Stars

 

Much Missed Actor For Your Queue

One of your last opportunities to savor the unsurpassed talent of Philip Seymour Hoffman hits home entertainment today. Among his last films, A Most Wanted Man, is available today on DVD and BluRay.

Hoffman is customarily brilliant as Gunther Bachmann, a seen-it-all, tired-of-it-all German intelligence officer trying to convince various other outlets (including the CIA) to put off arresting an escaped Russian convict who is seeking a new start in Hamburg. Bachmann thinks the fugitive can lead him to a major player in global terrorism, and he fights for time even as he harbors doubts about the overall effect of his efforts.

Based on the novel by John LeCarre and directed with exacting precision by Anton Corbijn, A Most Wanted Man moves at its own pace and demands your attention if you expect to keep up. Do it, and you’ll find an intense, enthralling tale of espionage, lead by a consummate actor who will be sorely missed.

If you’re looking for another of Hoffman’s masterful performances, there are plenty to choose from. We recommend Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead. In his third award-worthy turn in 2007 Hoffman finds himself with a character that a great actor would dream of and the lesser of the world could only screw up. An older brother (Hoffman) hiding dark, addictive behavior, talks his sad-sack younger brother (Ethan Hawke) into something unthinkable. Desperate for approval, sensitive in the weirdest moments, black hearted the next, Andy is a fascinating character thanks to Hoffman’s effortless genius.

The “We Hope We’re Wrong” Countdown

There are a few shoe-ins for awards contention this year, and they deserve the attention. We expect to see Michael Keaton, Jake Gyllenhaal, JK Simmons, Reese Witherspoon, Ralph Feinnes, Patricia Arquette and Emma Stone, plus a slew of likelies from films we haven’t seen yet.  But – premature as it may seem – we’re already worried about the magnificent performances we have seen and fear will go overlooked this awards season.

Brendan Gleeson

The always magnificent Gleeson lands the role of a lifetime in Calvary as the good priest who learns during a confession that an abused man intends to make a martyr of him. It is an awe inspiring performance of turmoil, skepticism, hope, struggle, faith and resignation.

Jenny Slate

Slate could not have been any better than she was in Obvious Child, a deeply different twist on the romantic comedy. Slate is so natural, awkward, hilarious and vulnerable – exactly what was needed to make the film work, and it does more than work. Thanks to her turn, it soars.

Viola Davis

Chadwick Boseman may get some deserved attention, but Davis’s turn as James Brown’s mother in Get On Up is a masters class in acting. The always formidable Davis is raw and magnificent. We hope awards voters don’t overlook the performance the same way audiences overlooked this gem of a movie.

Carla Juri

Her fierce and fearless turn in Wetlands may actually turn Oscar voters away in droves, but we’re hard pressed to think of a lead performance that was more impressive. We hope Oscar grows a pair and takes note.

Michael Fassbender

Fassbender will be an awards favorite for the rest of his life, but since not a living soul saw his magnificent, tender, funny and heartbreaking turn inside a giant head in Frank, it’s not likely he’ll get the notice he so deeply deserves this awards season.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9dcLw6CPzIs

Tilda Swinton

What a year for Swinton! She crafted fully formed, utterly different characters in four films this year. Which one deserves an award? Pick one: Snowpiercer (Be a shoe!), Only Lovers Left Alive, Zero Theorem and/or The Grand Budapest Hotel. Swinton is wonderful in every one of them.

Tom Hardy

Hardy deserves attention for two lead turns this year, the one man show Locke and the understated drama The Drop. He is truly one of the very most compelling talents working today and it is high time he get some notice.

Scarlett Johansson:

The undeniably gorgeous A-lister finally does a nude scene in the most underseen film of her career – Jonathan Glazers hypnotically unnerving SciFi gem Under the Skin. Johansson shoulders the entire film, mesmerizing from beginning to end.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NoSWbyvdhHw

 

Am I Blue?

The Blue Room

by Hope Madden

A quietly hypnotic tale that slowly takes shape, The Blue Room is an impressive piece of French cinema. This story of a clandestine love affair is hauntingly told with flashbacks that blend languidly with the present to create a dreamy effect.

Known best for performances like his devastatingly complex Jean-Do in The Diving Bell and The Butterfly, Mathieu Amalric proves just as nimble when behind the camera. He directs, stars and co-adapts the novel by respected and prolific crime writer Georges Simenon, a sordid yet restrained tale of love, suspicion and shame.

While Amalric weaves dreamily between a couple’s passionate moments, the man’s memory of his recent past, and his current predicament, Christophe Beaucarne’s camera articulates every detail. Amalric creates an atmosphere that mirrors his character Julien’s state of mind.

His performance is just as impressive. As these details swim through his consciousness alongside fragments of passion and moments of familial happiness, we and he try to make sense of what’s going on. As we finally, simultaneously, understand, the effect is as devastating to us as it is to Julien.

Amalric’s turn is as restrained as the storytelling, and his face animates his growing helplessness, terror and realization.

It’s a slight story, padded with no fat at all and clocking in at a slick 75 minutes. Within that timeframe, Amalric picks at your nerves, keeps you guessing, and delivers a tidy little mystery.

Verdict-4-0-Stars

The Camera Never Lies

 

Nightcrawler

by George Wolf

I don’t know why it took so long to combine Network, Broadcast News and American Psycho, but Nightcrawler is here now, so buckle down for a helluva ride.

It is a mesmerizing film, propelled by a career-defining performance from Jake Gyllenhaal. Years from now, his “Travis Bickle”  may very well be Lou Bloom, a strangely polite, utterly driven man in search of a purpose.

He finds it via an old camcorder, which becomes his passage into the life of a freelance videographer in L.A. Night after night, Lou waits by a police scanner for a chance to be the first at a crime scene and come away with footage that will fetch a high price from the local TV news stations.

Lou seems like a natural, and soon he’s got an assistant (a terrific Riz Ahmed), brand new equipment and a cozy relationship with a news director (Rene Russo, supporting award-worthy) who describes her broadcast as a “screaming woman running down the street with her throat cut.”

But first, the weather!

Writer/director Dan Gilroy has several screenplays under his belt (The Bourne Legacy, Two for the Money) but may be best known as Russo’s husband. That should change, as his debut as a director is awash in style and biting creativity.

Call it poetic justice that Nightcrawler is opening just as TV news enters the November sweeps ratings period. Yes, the film hits the “if it bleeds, it leads” mantra and hits it hard, but doesn’t shrink from wondering just who that indicts:  the show or its audience?

As Lou’s sociopathic tendencies lead him to become more and more involved in the stories he’s covering, the film sharpens its satirical claws. Fear-mongering, class warfare, “bootstrap mentality” and more take a beating, with Gilroy showing great instincts for when to pull back before his hand becomes too heavy.

His gets a great assist from Oscar-winning cinematographer Robert Elswit (There Will Be Blood), who bathes the film in dark, sleek shine, making Bloom’s seedy world inescapable.

But the anchor here is Gyllenhaal’s can’t-look-away performance. He makes Lou Bloom an American psycho for today, unfazed by business cards but unable to tolerate anyone altering his plan for upward mobility. He’s all smiles and positivity, all the while analyzing your weaknesses he will unapologetically exploit when necessary.

Everything about Nightcrawler should be in the 2014 awards mix. Chase this ambulance down, and fast.

 

Verdict-4-0-Stars

 

Halloween Countdown, Day 31

The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974)

Not everyone considers The Texas Chainsaw Massacre a classic. Those people are wrong. Perhaps even stupid.

Tobe Hooper’s camera work, so home-movie like, worked with the “based on a true story” tag line like nothing before it, and the result seriously disturbed the folks of 1974. It has been ripped off and copied dozens of times since its release, but in the context of its time, it was so absolutely original it was terrifying.

Hooper sidestepped all the horror gimmicks audiences had grown accustomed to – a spooky score that let you know when to grow tense, shadowy interiors that predicted oncoming scares – and instead shot guerilla-style in broad daylight, outdoors, with no score at all. You just couldn’t predict what was coming.

Hooper also cast aside any concerns for dignity or fair play, a theme best personified by wheelchair-bound Franklin. Franklin is supremely unlikeable – whiney and selfish – ending horror’s long history of using personal vulnerability to make a character more sympathetic. Films such as Wait Until DarkWhatever Happened to Baby Jane, and Rear Window (all excellent movies) ratcheted up tension through the sympathy they could generate toward the helpless character. These films’ anxiety and payoff both owe everything to watching the vulnerable protagonist in danger, and waiting for them to overcome the odds.

But Hooper is after an entirely different kind of tension. He dashes your expectations, making you uncomfortable, as if you have no idea what you could be in for. As if, in watching this film, you yourself are in more danger than you’d predicted.

But not more danger than Franklin is in, because Franklin is not in for a good time.

So, poor, unlikeable Franklin Hardesty, his pretty sister Sally, and a few other friends head out to Grampa Hardesty’s final resting place after hearing the news of some Texas cemeteries being grave-robbed. They just want to make sure Grampy’s still resting in peace – an adventure which eventually leads to most of them making a second trip to a cemetery. Well, what’s left of them.

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eY4ldz615FA

MaddWolf interviews Bruce Campbell!

 

Bruce Campbell loves Halloween. “Halloween is like Christmas for what I do,” he told us, “and I choose to spend it in Columbus, Ohio!”

We’re pretty giddy about that.

Bruce will be in town Friday for the Wizard World Ohio Comic Con at the Convention Center. He’ll be available for pictures and autographs with fans, as well as a Q&A panel where he promises to “destroy the audience!”

He was good enough to talk with us Thursday morning about the Comic Con, why the Evil Dead series is so endlessly popular, his advice for trick or treaters, and details on his own upcoming “Bruce Campbell Horror Fest!”

Click here for the full, groovy interview:  Bruce Campbell interview Oct 2014

 

 

Halloween Countdown, Day 30

American Psycho (2000)

A giddy hatchet to the head of the abiding culture of the Eighties, American Psycho represents the sleekest, most confident black comedy – perhaps ever. Director Mary Harron trimmed Bret Easton Ellis’s novel, giving it unerring focus. More importantly, the film soars due to Christian Bale’s utterly astonishing performance as narcissist, psychopath, and Huey Lewis fan Patrick Bateman.

There’s an elegant exaggeration to the satire afoot. Bateman is a slick, sleek Wall Street toady, pompous one minute because of his smart business cards and quick entrance into posh NYC eateries, cowed the next when a colleague whips out better cards and shorter wait times. For all his quest for status and perfection, he is a cog indistinguishable from everyone who surrounds him. The more glamour and flash on the outside, the more pronounced the abyss on the inside. What else can he do but turn to bloody, merciless slaughter? It’s a cry for help, really.

Harron’s send up of the soulless Reagan era is breathtakingly handled, from the set decoration to the soundtrack, but the film works as well as a horror picture as it does a comedy. Whether it’s Chloe Sevigny’s tenderness as Bateman’s smitten secretary or Cara Seymour’s world wearied vulnerability, the cast draws a real sense of empathy and dread that complicate the levity. We do not want to see these people harmed, and as hammy as it seems, you may almost call out to them: Look behind you!

As solid as this cast is, and top to bottom it is perfect, every performance is eclipsed by the lunatic genius of Bale’s work. Volatile, soulless, misogynistic and insane and yet somehow he also draws some empathy. It is wild, brilliant work that marked a talent preparing for big things.

Released with an NC-17 rating, the film floundered immediately but has grown a worthy cult status over the years. It’s not for the squeamish or the literal minded, but for those open to an impeccably crafted horror comedy and a little wholesome Eighties tunes, it is a gem.