Tag Archives: Angelina Jolie

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Fire Starter

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Those Who Wish Me Dead

by Hope Madden

Michael Koryta’s heart-thumping YA adventure tale Those Who Wish Me Dead comes to the big screen. Well, mainly—it’s also on HBO Max—but the mountainous, fiery, wooded adventure is better suited to the largest screen you can find.

Koryta himself adapted his novel, along with co-writers Charles Leavitt (not very good—Warcraft, Seventh Son, In the Heart of the Sea) and Taylor Sheridan (very good—Hell or High Water, Sicario).

It should even out.

Sheridan also directs, dropping a young boy (Finn Little) in a burning forest, hunted by two murderers (Nicholas Hoult and Aiden Gillen), with only Angelina Jolie to help.

She does have a way with children, though.

Jolie’s Hanna Faber is a damaged Hotshot (those firefighters who parachute into forest blazes). She failed her psych eval after those fatalities last season and now she’s stuck in a lonely fire lookout tower miles from anywhere with nothing to keep her company but her own haunted thoughts.

So what I’m saying is, Those Who Wish Me Dead is now about Hanna rather than being about the kid who is wished dead. I just want fans of the novel to be prepared for this.

It’s still a perfectly satisfying if not particularly inspired adventure tale.

Little delivers an emotional blow as the newly orphaned youth who’s trying to be brave, trying to be smart, and sincerely in need of a hug. The biggest issue is simply the way he becomes a side character in his own story.

He’s not as discarded as the couple who run the survival camp (Jon Bernthal and Medina Senghore – though the latter does look glorious riding horseback with her rifle through the flames).

The basic backstory does suit this cinematic vehicle, though, and Jolie proves a charismatic central figure who can sure take a beating. As the bad guys close in from one direction, the fire from the other, Sheridan and team build a perfectly reasonable and structurally sound thriller.

Performances are strong and locations are gorgeous, but Those Who Wish Me Dead doesn’t take a lot of risks and that’s unfortunate.

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Lost and Found

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Unbroken

by Hope Madden

With Unbroken, Angelina Jolie’s second effort behind the camera, she proves she knows how to put together a team. Beginning with screenwriters Joel and Ethan Cohen (each with 4 Oscars, two apiece for writing) and extending to cinematographer Roger Deakins (11-time Oscar nominee) and the man behind the music, Alexandre Desplat (with his mere 6 Oscar noms), she’s given Louis Zamperini’s story the storytellers it deserves.

Their film shares the honestly amazing tale of an Olympic runner who finds himself adrift at sea and then held in a Japanese POW camp during WWII. If the film suffers from anything, it’s an overabundance of respect for the source material.

So much of Zamperini’s life just defies belief – if ever there was a true story destined for the big screen, it was his, and Jack O’Connell delivers the grit and spirit needed to pull off the tale. O’Connell may be new to many viewers, but this Brit has been quietly developing an impressive arsenal of work (Eden Lake, Starred Up, ’71). If this performance and film leave questions about Zamperini as a person, O’Connell certainly convinces when it comes to the man’s seemingly bottomless reserve of strength.

While you absolutely get the feeling that this is the guy you’d want with you if you were ever lost at sea, the film refuses to expound on what drives that buoyancy. Nor does it offer a glimpse at the conflicting emotional turmoil he would carry with him after the war.

The cast is large and O’Connell has the kind of easy charisma that makes most scenes feel intimate. The ensemble offers some memorable turns – from Domhnall Gleeson and Takamasa Ishihara, in particular – but too many actors fall back on broad stroke flying ace clichés and too few hold your interest.

Still, there’s no escaping the jaw-dropping facts of this adventure – facts which alone compel rapt attention for the duration of the film. Deakins’s images are on a scale befitting the epic, and Jolie has a knack for taking advantage of every inch of a screen.

Whatever Unbroken’s faults, the adventure will overwhelm you, as it should, and the facts and triumphs will stay with you long after the credits roll.

 

Verdict-3-5-Stars

 

 





Outtakes

Counting Down the Women of Film, 2014

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Of the many excellent trends in movie houses this year, our favorite was the focus on female directors. Here we celebrate our favorite films of 2014 helmed by women.

Selma: Ava DuVernay’s account of the civil rights marches in Selma, Alabama doesn’t flinch. You can expect the kind of respectful approach common in historical biopics, but don’t let that lull you. This is not a laudable and forgettable historical art piece, and you’ll know that as you watch little girls descend a staircase within the first few minutes. Selma is a straightforward, well crafted punch to the gut. It opens in Columbus on January 9. Do not miss it.

The Babadook: A familiar tale given primal urgency, the horror fueled by compassion, the terror unsettling and genuine – this film is more than a scary movie, and it immediately ranks among the freshest and most memorable the genre has to offer. It also marks first time feature filmmaker Jennifer Kent as an artist to watch.

A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night: Ana Lily Amirpour’s first feature – also Iran’s very first vampire film -is a gorgeous, peculiar reimagining of the familiar. Amirpour mixes imagery and themes from a wide range of filmmakers as she updates and twists the common vampire tropes with unique cultural flair. The result is a visually stunning, utterly mesmerizing whole.

Obvious Child: Gillian Robespierre crafts an uncommonly realistic, uncomfortable, taboo-shattering comedy with this one. A romantic comedy quite unlike any other, it succeeds in large part due to a miraculous lead turn from Jenny Slate. Robespierre’s refreshingly frank film rings with authenticity, and is as touching as it is raw.

Belle: Amma Asante’s directorial breakout is the fact-based tale of a bi-racial girl raised by her aristocratic grandparents in 18th Century England. Well told and perfectly cast, with the always flawless Tom Wilkinson playing the family patriarch and a wondrous turn by Gugu Mbatha-Raw in the lead, the film draws parallels you never knew existed between past and present.

Beyond the Lights: Mbatha-Raw impresses again with help from another female behind the camera in this cautionary tale about fame by Gina Prince-Bythewood. What looks like a by-the-numbers melodrama about selling your soul for success does follow a familiar trajectory, but it does a fine job with that journey.

Unbroken: Angelina Jolie’s second effort behind the camera tells the truly amazing story of an Olympic runner turned WWII POW. Her attention to detail benefits the historical epic, and another strong turn by Jack O’Connell keeps your attention.





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Countdown: Weird Trend of 2014

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Weird theme for great 2014 movies: one word titles. The oddest trait we saw emerge in great films this war was the one-word title film. A full 15 of the best films of 2014 had single-word titles – who knows why? Whatever the reason, in no particular order, are the best of the one-word-title films (and some of the very, very best films of the year.

1. Wild: Reese Witherspoon will no doubt garner her second Oscar nomination and quite possibly her second Oscar starring as a woman who walks 1100 miles solo to get her head together.

2. Selma: Ave DuVernay’s powerful, painfully relevant biopic on Martin Luther King, Jr. and the marches on Selma, Alabama delivers all the punch it needs with one word.

3. Unbroken: Angelina Jolie returns to a spot behind the camera for this true tale of Olympic athlete and WWII POW Louis Zamperini.

4. Birdman: Meta-magical-realism at its finest, Alejandro Gonzales Inarritu’s look at the transience and transcendence of fame will scoop up some Oscars this year.

5. Calvary: Woefully underseen, this wry, weary and brilliant look at the affects of Catholicism’s abuses boasts the great Brendan Gleeson’s best performance.

6. Whiplash: Holy shit! JK Simmons gets the role of a lifetime as an abusive music teacher who is either trying to push his students to greatness or is trying to get away with absolute sadism. This may be the most tense film of the year.

7. Nightcrawler: Another amazing film, this one positing a weirdly sometimes likeable sociopath (Jake Gyllenhaal at his absolute best) in the context of local news – what better fit could there be?

8. Frank: Another underseen gem, this one has the great Michael Fassbender hiding inside a giant plastic head in an exploration of madness and music.

9. Foxcatcher: Bennett Miller returns with another masterpiece in understatement, a true crime tale of Olympic wrestlers and insane billionaires that could bring Oscar nominations to the unlikeliest of actors: Steve Carell and Channing Tatum.

10. Rosewater: Jon Stewart proved his mettle behind the camera with this touching, insightful and underseen true story of a journalist jailed during the Iranian elections of 2009.

11. Boyhood: The best film of 2014, Boyhood’s filming spanned 12 years and let us glimpse something no other film has ever captured.

12. Wetlands: Underneath the shock and body fluids is a deeply human story boasting a fearless and nuanced performance.

13. Snowpiercer: The best SciFi in a year of especially great SciFi, the film was sabotaged by its own studio and still wound up wowing audiences everywhere.

14. Interstellar: Not Christopher Nolan’s best, but when his intergalactic epic is working, it is a mind-bending ride.

15. Locke: A one man show that highlights the talents of perhaps the greatest actor of his generation, Tom Hardy. See it. Do it!





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Counting Down Holiday Must-Sees

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Both Whiplash and Rosewater open this weekend at the Drexel and Gateway Film Center respectively. Both are must-see independent films with Oscar buzz aplenty, but they also signal the end of the fall films. Next weekend, things move toward holiday hoopla, and the awards-baiting indies flow alongside giant blockbuster contenders – indeed, the two sometimes even intersect. What are the holiday films to look out for?

The Hunger Games: Mockingjay – Part 1 (11/21)

Not every adolescent novel series turns into quite this strong a film franchise. Much credit goes to the boundless talent of Jennifer Lawrence, whose surly heroine goes beyond games and into real revolution in the third of four installments.

Horrible Bosses 2 (11/26)

Will it garner Oscar nominations? No. But early word on the sequel to the surprisingly hilarious Horrible Bosses looks to have upped its game, and I want to play.

The Theory of Everything (11/28)

Get to know Eddie Redmayne. This guy can do no wrong, and he may finally get the notice he deserves in this film. Redmayne plays young Stephen Hawking in the magnificent James Marsh’s dramatization of Hawking’s relationship with his first wife, Jane (Felicity Jones).

The Imitation Game (12/5)

Benedict Cumberbatch is impressing early audiences in his turn as Alan Turing, an Englishman who helped break the Enigma code during WWII. Director Morten Tyldum’s last film Headhunters was too enthralling to miss his follow up.

Wild (12/19)

Reese Witherspoon is already the frontrunner in a an Oscar race not yet underway, but her turn as a woman who walks 1100 miles alone to get her head straight is impressing early audiences that much.

Unbroken (12/25)

Angelina Jolie goes behind the camera again, this time to direct the biopic of Olympian and POW Louis Zamperini. Actor-to-watch Jack O’Connell stars, but what’s more impressive is that Joel and Ethan Coen adapted Laura Hillenbrand’s nonfiction text.

The Interview, (12/25)

This Is the End proved that Seth Rogan and Evan Goldberg were solid comedic filmmakers. The two return to their spot behind the camera and pen, with Rogan and BFF James Franco starring as two shoddy journalists who head to North Korea to interview/assassinate Kim Jong-un. No taboo shattering there! It should prove to be uncomfortable, but smart money says it’ll be funny as hell.

Big Eyes (12/25)

Perennial Oscar contenders Amy Adams and Christoph Waltz star in Tim Burton’s biopic of artist Margaret Keane. Early predictors put Adams in the running for best actress, but if this is the film that returns Burton to solid directorial ground, it’s a victory already.

Into the Woods (12/25)

Rob Marshall brings the Sondheim musical to the screen, spinning a yarn that knots Brothers Grimm tales together and sees Meryl Streep, Johnny Depp, Emily Blunt, Anna Kendrick and Chris Pine playing recognizable fairy tale characters. Early word is that the cinematic version boasts inspired performances, particularly from Depp and Streep as The Wolf and The Witch, respectively. We’re in.

Come January we can expect a couple late-running heavy hitters including Paul Thomas Anderson’s Inherent Vice and Clint Eastwood’s American Sniper before the winter blahs hit theaters. Foxcatcher’s been a moving target, but it looks like local audiences will finally get a chance to see that by mid-January. But you know what? As far as we know, the Browns may still be in contention in January, so we may still have something to watch!

Wait, did we just jinx us?





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No Badass is Safe

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Maleficent

by Hope Madden

Hey, thanks a lot Wicked.

For those of us who love a good villain for their terrifying villainy, the popularity of the stage musical Wicked has created a bit of a problem: the neutering of the greatest of the greats. Gregory Maguire started it when he gave the Wicked Witch of the West a political backstory that exposed her self-sacrifice and good nature.

Now Disney wants to turn their greatest and most terrifying villain, Sleeping Beauty‘s Maleficent, into another role model.

Bah!

I’ll give them this. They can cast a lead.

Angelina Jolie has always cut an imposing, otherworldly figure, and Maleficent’s horns and leather look right at home. She offers the chilly elegance, dry humor and shadowy grace needed to bring the animated evildoer to life.

Plus, she looks great. And the film looks great – we’d expect nothing less from first-time director, longtime visual effects and set design maestro Robert Stromberg. But it’s not enough to save the effort.

The truly talented Elle Fanning struggles in an anemically-written role while Sharlto Copley flails, saddled with a character whose descent into madness is articulated with little more than overacting.

The basis of the problem is a toothless script by Linda Woolverton. Less the girl-power theme that elevated Frozen (another Wicked rip off) and more a bitter pill about untrustworthy men, the film feels mean in all the wrong ways. Woolverton’s also littered the enchanted landscape with forgettable or annoying characters – the three pixies of Disney’s ’59 animated film devolve from adorable, amusing pips to annoying, useless caregivers.

Stromberg’s plodding pace helps little. He forever undercuts any tension he builds, and the film suffers immeasurably from lack of momentum.

He and Woolverton could have learned a lot from the flawed but watchable Snow White and the Huntsmen (2012), a film that sought to update the old fable with a larger focus on its great villain without de-fanging her bite. Instead, Maleficent takes the very strongest element of the Sleeping Beauty fairy tale and weakens it.

Look out, Darth Vader. At the rate Hollywood is corrupting our great villains, you’ll be singing show tunes in no time.

 

Verdict-2-0-Stars