Outtakes

Countdown: Best (and Worst) Actors Playing Athletes

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Major League‘s 25th anniversary meets Draft Day‘s opening weekend, and it got us chatting about the more and less convincing onscreen athletic performances. Remember Chelcie Ross as Eddie Harris, veteran Tribe pitcher and Jobu hater? How old was that guy, a hundred? (Fun fact: he was 47.) We believed he was a MLB starting pitcher almost as much as we bought Denis Leary playing a grizzled NFL coach. But is anybody worse? And does anybody do it well?

Most Convincing

Kevin Costner

It really doesn’t matter the sport. He’s convinced us as a baseball player several times, and a golfer. And it’s not just the easy athleticism or the mechanics, but his comfort with lingo and team relationships. We’re sold.

Jamie  Foxx

Any Given Sunday lacks a lot. A lot. But one thing it absolutely possesses is a realistic athlete in the form of Jamie Foxx. He has grace and skill and his onfield performance is almost enough to compensate for Al Pacino’s screeching.

Woody Harrelson

The guy can play basketball. Hustling on a playground or finishing a semi-pro career, Harrelson has some skill on the court. Dunking or not, tell Aunt Bea we said he can ball.

Chadwick Boseman

He had some big shoes to fill in 42, and not only does he look the part off the diamond, he actually swings a bat and throws a ball with the confidence of a man brave enough to play Jackie Robinson.

Charlie Sheen

Sheen’s passion for baseball is well-known, and he took his role as an MLB pitcher seriously. Whether he was throwing just a bit outside or right down the plate, Sheen had pretty smooth delivery. Hell, maybe he Tribe should sign him up.

 

Least Convincing

And we’re not talking about Will Ferrell, who put his lack of athleticism to excellent use as a basketball player (Semi-Pro), skater (Blades of Glory), soccer coach (Kicking and Screaming), NASCAR driver (Talladega Nights). Ditto for Will’s buddy Danny McBride, whose casting as a 100 mph fireballer in East Bound and Down is equally ludicrous. No, these are the folks who were wildly miscast as serious athletes.

There are a lot of options here. Rob Lowe in Youngblood as hockey player who clearly cannot skate. Or Madonna in A League of Their Own. Or pint sized Michael J. Fox playing basketball in Teen Wolf – sure it’s a comedy, but is it the basketball itself that was meant to draw giggles?

There are other real standouts, though.

Wesley Snipes

Snipes wins. The guy was forever being cast as an athlete, and though he looked good in a uniform, team sports were clearly not his bag. You might not know it from casual viewings of Major League – yes he made that catch at the wall but notice you never see him throwing – but between The Fan and White Men Can’t Jump, you do.

Bernie Mac

In Mr. 3000, Mac plays an unlikeable, retired hitter planning to skate into the hall of fame on just his career hit total:  3000 exactly.  But when an error in the stats reveals he’s short, he goes back to the diamond regardless of the fact that Mac had clearly never held a bat in his life. Usually it’s the throwing motion that gives an actor away, but Mac was so unconvincing at the plate we actually missed the technique of Wesley Snipes.

Anthony Michael Hall

In 1988, Uma Thurman was still unknown, Robert Downey, Jr. was still high, and Anthony Michael Hall was still a 90 pound weakling. So whoever decided to cast him as the number one high school football recruit in Johnny Be Good was clearly sharing  Downey’s brownies, because Hall wasn’t just far too small to be taken seriously. He looked like he was playing with his eyes closed.

Anthony Perkins

Three years before his breakout brilliance in Psycho, Anthony Perkins played another character with mental illness. Mental illness he handled well. Unfortunately, in Fear Strikes Out, that character – Jimmy Piersall – was also a Major League center fielder. Tee ball players show a more commanding grasp of the game. It’s hard to imagine anyone looking more lost than Perkins looked at the plate, in the field, heck, in the building.

Tim Robbins

While Bull Durham may be the greatest sports movie of all time, with much of its success due to casting, choosing Tim Robbins to play pitching phenom Ebby Calvin “Nuke” LaLoosh clearly had nothing to do with his presence on the mound. Robbins is a limby, wobbly mess and that was the ugliest windup in sports movie history.

 

 

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Less Smoke, More Mirror

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Oculus

by Hope Madden

Back in 2011, writer/director Mike Flanagan unleashed the impressive nightmare Absentia, a film that cost him just $70,000 to make. Creepy, memorable and extremely well crafted given the budget, the film suggested an artist who deserved a chance with some real money.

Armed with the genre cred from that film, as well as the story from his well-received short, Flanagan embarked on his first wide-release horror film, Oculus.

His new effort follows a pair of siblings looking to prove that their childhood family horror was actually the fault of a cursed mirror.

Flanagan braids present day events and flashbacks effectively, not just to illustrate the ghastly deeds of the siblings’ youth, but to emphasize the growing madness of the brother and sister as they revisit the scene of the crime and set about proving their theory.

He has better luck with the performances of the youngsters in the cast than their present-day counterparts. Ten-year-old Kaylie Russell (played with convincing spunk by Annalise Basso) and her little brother Tim (Garrett Ryan) survived a family meltdown of Overlook Hotel proportions. While Tim’s spent his formative years institutionalized and learning to accept a more logical version of the events, Kaylie bounced around foster homes doing research and plotting to clear her family name, prove her version of the story, and break that damn mirror.

The pouty Karen Gillan (Dr.Who) offers more insincere bravado than spunk as the adult version of the determined sister, while Brenton Thwaites’s newly-released Tim has as much charisma as a tuna sandwich. For this reason, the flashback sequences hold more attention than the modern-day plans to undo the evil.

Plus, terrorized children are just more scary than whining adults.

Flanagan has some real skill weaving the rational world with one full of madness, and he knows when to rely on FX and when to be craftier with his scares. Unfortunately, his pacing is frustratingly slow, which makes his climax feel like a bit of a cheat. It’s hard not to compare his work with others of similar themes – The Shining, for example – and in that company, Oculus falls quite short.

 

Verdict-2-5-Stars

 

 

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Cleveland Lite Rocks

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Draft Day

by George Wolf

Don’t tell Cleveland sports fans that a movie released 25 years ago this week didn’t help turn one of their hapless losers into a championship contender.

Don’t tell us it can’t happen again.

Major League hit in 1989, and before long, the Indians were winning.

Draft Day won’t make anybody’s list of great sports movies, but if it propels the Browns toward the Super Bowl, a lifetime achievement Oscar would surely be in order.

The focus is just what the title promises:  the day of the NFL draft. And though the film was originally conceived for the Buffalo Bills organization, the more budget-friendly environment in the Dawg Pound put Cleveland on the clock.

Kevin Costner plays Sonny Weaver, Jr., the Browns GM who wakes up on draft day with some issues.

Though he doesn’t hold the first pick, Sonny is getting pressured by his owner (Frank Langella) to trade up and make a splash by landing the new hot quarterback prospect. Not only is Sonny unsure the Browns need a QB (pause for laughter), but his somewhat secret relationship with Ali, the team’s salary cap expert (Jennifer Garner), has hit a critical point.

In their feature debut, screenwriters Scott Rothman and Rajiv Joseph try to mix Jerry McGuire‘s sports biz love story with Moneyball‘s profile of a maverick GM. They aim high, but just can’t provide enough reason for us to care much about the couple, or about anyone else we meet.

Current players and prospective draft picks are given contrived back stories, while Sonny’s own history of trying to live up to a family legacy becomes laborious. Ditto the manufactured friction between Sonny and his head coach (Denis Leary).

Costner, as in all his sports movies, looks right at home, though Garner seems a bit lost and Leary resembles a football coach as much as Bill Belichick does a standup comedian.

Draft Day arrives with the blessing of the NFL, but that can be a double-edged sword. It certainly looks authentic, with enough logos and famous faces to sometimes resemble a “sorry about that moving your team thing” love letter to Browns fans. Heck, even some fake Ohio State game footage is impressive.

But you also get plenty of sponsor product placement and a brand- friendly message that puts executive deal-making in the same league as a late game touchdown drive.Director Ivan Reitman proves a worthy choice for the task at hand:  keep things snappy and polished, but forget about digging any deeper than a highlight reel.

The draft is now a major pop culture event, as a football-starved nation eagerly accepts anything resembling NFL entertainment and asks for more.

Draft Day will fit right in.

But still, go Browns!

Verdict-2-5-Stars

 

 

 

Outtakes

Countdown: Best No-Frills SciFi

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Scarlett Johansson shoulders the heft of a new and impressive low key SciFi flick opening next weekend, Under the Skin. It got us to thinking about those understated genre gems that rethink science fiction cliches and wow us for it. You don’t need laser blasters, black holes or rankors to create a memorable fantasy film. Here  are a handful of our favorite low-intensity yet high-impact SciFi flicks.

 

6. Another Earth (2011)

The first of two Brit Marling films to get the nod, Another Earth spins a science-sketchy but emotionally brave tale of a young woman, a car accident, and a duplicate Earth. Go in expecting a deliberately paced, moving and clever character study and you won’t be disappointed by errors in scientific data concerning gravitational pulls. Co-writer/star Marling delivers with understated authority.

5. The Sound of My Voice (2011)

Co-writing, starring and impressing a second time in the same year, Marling became a kind of low key SciFi goddess in 2011. Or a prophet – at least for this eerie, daring film. Two fledgeling documentarians go under cover to secretly film a cult whose leader (Marling) claims to be from the future. Surprising, evocative and captivating without so much as one second’s FX, the film hits its marks and keeps you guessing.

4. Timecrimes (2007)

This one is nutty, and absolutely required viewing for anyone with an interest in space/time continuum conundrums. So much can go wrong when you travel just one hour back in time. An always clever experiment in science fiction and irony, Timecrimes is a spare, unique and wild ride.

3. Primer (2004)

Made for $7000, this film is, in itself, an act of science fiction. Writer/director Shane Carruth, taking his first of two spots on the countdown, drums up all new ways to consider the havoc a time machine could wreak. It would be the most streamlined, absorbing and ingenious film of its kind if there were other films of its kind.

2. Safety Not Guaranteed (2012)

An outstanding premise, generous performances, and a director who knows when to go in for the comedic kill and  when to lean on compassion add up to one of the most clever, most fun time-travel-and-slackers movies ever.

1. Upstream Color (2013)

He waited 9 years between films, but in 2013, writer/director Shane Carruth delivered an awe inspiring take on identity crisis. The film defies summarization and expectations, but its dreamlike tale of lovers rebuilding their shattered lives with more in common than they realize is a poignant, beautiful, lyrical wonder.

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Because “Sex Addict” Loses a Little of the Magic

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Nymphomaniac, Volume I

by Hope Madden

Nymphomaniac, Volume I, is a difficult film to review, and not, surprisingly enough, because of its subject matter. The fact is that filmmaker provocateur Lars von Trier’s latest affront is, indeed, an unfinished piece. As engaging as Volume I is, it is not a standalone film, and without knowing precisely where LvT is going, it’s hard to say how well he’s getting there.

What we have so far is a not-so-simple dialogue. Old bachelor Seligman (Stellan Skarsgard) finds a battered young woman (Charlotte Gainsbourg) in an alley. She won’t see a doctor, so he nurses her at his home and, in return, she tells him the story of her life.  Well, the first part, anyway.

For the next couple of hours, it’s as if LvT’s morose side (Gainsbourg, as Joe) argues with his impish side (Skarsgard), while Stacy Martin (playing the young Joe) has a lot of sex. The film is as much a story about storytelling as it is anything.

Joe sometimes rests in her confession to allow a little editorial from the helpful and artfully non-judgy Seligman. (Could he be named for the famed American psychologist Martin Seligman, founder of “positive psychology” and the theory of learned helplessness?) Seligman not only points out that she’s being too hard on herself, but offers different allegories from nature and science to enliven her narrative, sometimes even questioning the veracity of her tale based on contrivance and coincidence he’s finding.

Again, it’s as if LvT is arguing with himself over narrative devices and the strength of his own storytelling. It offers the film a playfulness rarely found in the Dane’s work, and the humor works wonders in keeping attention and distancing the film from a label of pornography.

Von Trier draws attention to the artifice he’s created. Even the title suggests a literary, romantic (as opposed to realistic) approach – in that the term used for the last several decades is sex addiction, which hardly conjures the same image.

His cast is game. A brief, supporting turn from Uma Thurman, in particular, is wickedly funny. But the star here is the filmmaker. Expect the von Trier trademarks: a visually magnificent display populated with shame, gender politics, sexuality, religion, all led by a wounded female who cannot fit in this world.

He’s exploring the same territory. Maybe he’s trying to distract us from that fact with all the sex? Or maybe he’s playing with us. While Volume II promises to be a more punishing effort, LvT’s first episode is surprisingly enjoyable.

 

Verdict-3-5-Stars

 

 

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Captain Fantastic

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Captain America:  The Winter Soldier

by George Wolf

 

Robert Redford’s appearance as S.H.I.E.L.D director Alexander Pierce not only brings a boost of legendary star power to Captain America:  The Winter Soldier, but also provides a direct link to thrillers of old that the film recalls.

The new Captain adventure has its feet firmly planted in the world of spies and political intrigue. Think Redford classics such as Three Days of the Condor or All the President’s Men with a healthy dose of Avenging, and you’re getting warm.

Much of what made Captain America:  The First Avenger work was the way it fully embraced the bygone era and dogged earnestness of Captain Steve Rogers. This time out, First Avenger screenwriters Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely return to successfully bring their hero into the present while casting a knowing eye toward the future. The tandem also wrote Thor:  The Dark World, and they clearly have impressive instincts for how to foster superpowers.

Rogers/Captain America (Chris Evans, effortlessly charming) is adjusting to his new time period, partly by embracing the internet and keeping a notebook of things he missed that deserve attention (like the birth of Apple and classic Marvin Gaye).  After an exciting rescue of high seas hostages, murderous events lead Cap, Black Widow (Scarlett Johansson, effortlessly sexy) and Nick Fury (Sam Jackson, effortlessly badass) to realize someone is dirty in the land of S.H.I.E.L.D, and they have a secret weapon of their own.

He’s the Winter Soldier (Sebastian Stan) an assassin with a familiar backstory and an ambitious target list:  Cap and his crew, including new superfriend Sam Wilson (Anthony Mackie).

The Winter Soldier is witty and clever (be sure to read that gravestone) but it may also be the most cerebral of the Marvel movies. It respects the past while confronting the complexities of modern life and wondering what they mean for our future.

For some of the youngest audience members, that may mean some stretches of restlessness. Directors Anthony and Joe Russo do provide impressive and well-paced action sequences, but it’s what comes between the fisticuffs that gives The Winter Soldier a weighty, dare I say realistic relevance.

And, per the Marvel way, stay in your seat for some extra shawarma midway through the credits, and another serving at the very end.

 

Verdict-3-5-Stars

 

 

 

Outtakes

Countdown: Docs for Non-Doc Lovers

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It’s Doc Week here in Columbus, that bi-annual festival that caters to the documentary lover in us all. But what of those who don’t care for docs? They’re missing so much! Well, in the interest of sharing the doc love, we’ve put together a list of documentaries bound to entertain even those folks with zero interest in the genre.

 

5. The King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters (2007)

Seth Gordon’s doc on old school video game competitions managed to be the best underdog sports comedy of the year. Wisely, the film doesn’t mock its subjects, which would have created a distance between the participants and the audience. The competition is so fierce and yet disarmingly funny. Full of geekdom, mystery, humanity and the quest to maintain one’s own legend, King of Kong is a miraculous little slice of competitive life.

4. Stories We Tell (2012)

Sarah Polley uses an absolutely fascinating and intensely personal investigation to make some universal points about how we frame our own stories when sharing them with others, whether it’s the way we recount a personal tale or the way a filmmaker manipulates the audience to create the desired tone. Her points are all the more powerful because she chooses to open up such a private story to make them.

3. Man On Wire (2008)

Philippe Petit tight rope walked from one World Trade Center to the other. It became known as the artistic crime of the century, and James Marsh’s Oscar-winning documentary offers endlessly fascinating tidbits about how he pulled it off. The doc is maddeningly suspenseful, and the sight of this exquisite, joyous lunacy literally attached to the site of such profound tragedy somehow makes it all that much more magical.

2. Murderball (2005)

It’s full contact wheelchair rugby for quadriplegics, and you would get your ass kicked. Murderball is a film that shows no mercy because mercy wouldn’t be accepted anyway, as it follows athletes vying for a spot in Paralympic Games. The competition is intense, the action breathtaking, the story sometimes wickedly funny, and the human experience of it all serves as the doc’s escalated heartbeat. Murderball may very well be the best sports documentary ever made.

1. The Imposter (2012)

Not the best doc on the list, but without question the one that will leave you astounded. A young French drifter claims to be the missing son of a grieving Texas family. Director Bart Layton keeps his film exactly one step ahead of you, and the twists are absolutely impossible to see coming. It’s a jaw dropping true crime story that will leave you amazed.

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Waiting for a Sunny Day

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Noah

by Hope Madden

The last time Darren Aronofsky and Ari Handel wrote a screenplay together, they came up with the filmmaker’s grandest, most epic misstep, The Fountain. Gorgeous and heady without enough beneath the surface to ground the visual display, it was a film about self-destruction, madness and commitment to the ideal of love.

Well, after two gritty, intimate tales on those same themes (The Wrestler, Black Swan), Aronofsky goes grand again with the biggest tale of human self-destruction, madness, and commitment to an ideal he could find: Noah. Amid the recent flood of Christian themed films (Son of God, God is Not Dead, and the upcoming Heaven is Real), it’s tempting not to take Noah very seriously. Aronofsky is serious.

An IMAX spectacle worthy of its subject matter, the effort is epic in scale and sometimes dizzyingly powerful to look at. And though the approach is 100% earnest and absolutely respectful of the Old Testament tale being told, he’s not only emphasizing parallels between the damned of Noah’s time and our current culture, but slyly asking  whether saving humanity was really the best idea.

It’s an admirable attempt, and though he nearly lost me with the biblical rock monsters (I swear to God), on the whole, the storytelling is as almost strong as the imagery.

He’s not getting the kind of nuanced, career-high performances from this cast that he enjoyed in his previous two efforts, though. Perhaps the reason is that these characters are far more broadly drawn, but their one dimensionality doesn’t help the film generate a lively, resonant quality. It tends instead to feed the film’s feel of a bombastic take on a musty, old story.

Russell Crowe scowls and looks conflicted, as does Jennifer Connelly (veteran not only of Crowe’s onscreen relationships but of Aronofsky films).

Ray Winstone delivers (as always) in the role that animates man’s wickedness, and with him Aronofsky scores the most points in articulating modern society’s connection to the parable without offering a sermon.

It’s a tremendous, impressive feat of cinema, the kind of epic biblical tale not attempted since Charlton Heston had his own hair. Aronofsky has entrenched himself in Noah’s story, considered what it really meant to him as a human, and by extension, what it meant to humanity. He doesn’t entirely pull it off, but it’s a hell of an effort.

 

Verdict-3-0-Stars

 

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_OSaJE2rqxU

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Iron Maiden

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Maidentrip

by George Wolf

 

Teenagers do the darnedest things.

If they’re not jacking up your phone bill from endless texting, they’re sailing around the world.

Two years ago, 14 year old Laura Dekker boarded her sailboat Guppy, and set out to become the youngest person to sail around the globe alone. Maidentrip is the inspiring documentary of her journey.

The footage, shot by Dekker and presented by director Jillian Schlesinger, not only lets us ride along on a breathtaking adventure, but gives us a glimpse inside the soul of a unique young woman.

Born in New Zealand and raised in Holland by a seafaring father, Dekker’s wandering spirit could not be denied. Rather than focus on the speed of the trip, Dekker chose to make stops along the way, taking time to experience places she had only read about, such as the Canary Islands, Australia and French Polynesia. It is an education to envy.

Robert Redford’s recent film, All is Lost, effectively used a fictional alone-at-sea adventure to mirror a man’s journey in life, and the regrets he contemplates in his twilight years.

At the opposite pole, Maidentrip ultimately represents all the wonder, excitement and pitfalls of the trip to adulthood. Without braggadocio or pretense, Dekker sets the course for her sailboat and the path for her life.

It is a compelling souvenir of a goal fulfilled, and a wonderful snapshot of a young life in blossom.

 

Verdict-4-0-Stars

 

 

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He’s Back. Again.

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Sabotage

by Hope Madden

At 67-years-old, Arnold Schwarzenegger is having a career resurgence of sorts. Sabotage is his 3rd film to be released in the last 12 months, and he has 5 more in development, including sequels to Expendables, Conan and Terminator. That’s not to say he’s exactly found an audience for his return to the big screen, but he’s certainly trying.

Truth is, neither Escape Plan or The Last Stand – his last two efforts – made at the box office even half of what they cost to produce. You’ve got to hope that his sequels do a little better, or that he’s put away some cash for retirement from somewhere else, because Sabotage is not likely to please a wider audience than his last two flicks.

It’s a darker film that you might expect, with mercifully few jokes about Arnold’s age. As Breacher, a legendary DEA agent whose career has taken an ugly turn, the big Austrian leads a team of unhinged misfits whose last bust corrupted their trust in the team and in Breacher.

Sabotage was co-written and directed by David Ayer, whose resume is littered with ill-conceived, gritty cop dramas (and the first Fast and Furious flick – so thanks for that). It’s a winding tale of double crosses that betray the worst in everybody, but Ayer can’t find a clean path through the story and Arnold can’t begin to shoulder the emotional weight required of his should-be complex character.

Points for a couple of unusual casting decisions. Mireille Enos cuts a sketchy figure as the team’s sole female agent – a role that could easily have fallen to (and seems to have been written for) a shapely babe pretending to be a badass. Instead, Enos looks like someone who could be mistaken for a meth addict (a plus in the world of covert DEA ops). She chews scenery, but at least she’s memorable.

Likewise, Olivia Williams has talent, and her ease with the material allows some genuine chemistry and natural humor to invade an otherwise stiff, by-the-numbers action flick. What she can’t do is handle a southern accent. Ouch.

Some decent red herrings are thrown about as Williams’s good cop works with Breacher to figure out who is picking off his team one by one. This generates decent tension as the investigation leads us through otherwise obvious territory. It’s when Ayer tries to throw an actual curve ball that things get sloppy.

He’s not aided by his lead’s performance, though. The twisty, secret-riddled script required a performance with a modicum of range. And yet, Ayers cast Arnold Schwarzenegger. Curious.

 

Verdict-2-0-Stars

 

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sVOCbK3s8Yo

Hope Madden and George Wolf … get it?