When reclusive author Shirley Jackson died in 1965 she left behind a body of work, including “The Haunting of Hill House,” a supernatural horror novel sometimes called one of the best ghost stories ever written. An influence on two generations of speculative fiction writers like Neil Gaiman, Stephen King, Sarah Waters and Richard Matheson, she is brought to vivid life in a new fictionalized drama, now on VOD, starring Elisabeth Moss.
Set just after the publication of “The Lottery,” a controversial short story about the ritual sacrifice of a town citizen to ensure good crops, published in a 1948 issue of The New Yorker, the film sees Shirley (Moss) paralyzed by the expectations that hang heavy over “Hangsaman,” a novel she is struggling to complete. Prickly and quick with a line, she is less than pleased when Stanley (Michael Stuhlbarg), her college professor husband, arranges for his new assistant Fred Nemser (Logan Lerman) and his pregnant wife Rose (Odessa Young) to live in their house while the young couple searches for a place of their own.
As the days and weeks stretch into months the relationship between the two couples becomes a blend of art and reality, a claustrophobic rabbit hole where Rose becomes the model for Shirley’s new main character, a college student who went walking on Vermont’s Long Trail hiking route and never returned.
“Shirley” uses elements of Jackson’s life but places them in context of one of her novels. The result is a psychological drama; a haunting look at a person driven to agoraphobia by the weight of her success and a domineering, philandering husband.
Moss is fascinating as the title character. Her take on Shirley is that of a woman who has lived under years of oppression by her bullying husband, a man whose misogyny has left her embittered, desperate and anxious. “To our suffering,” Stanley says as a toast to his wife. “There’s not enough Scotch in the world for that,” Shirley snorts, in a line that could have been borrowed from “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?” She’s vulnerable and filled with rage, compassionate and spiteful, often in the same scene.
Shirley and Stanley, as compelling as they are as characters, do not comprise the film’s defining relationship. Director Josephine Decker feeds on the psychological aspects of Jackson’s work to tease out a story of Shirley and Rose, two women drawn together by frustration, talent and obsession over the missing woman at the heart of the new novel. “Let’s pray for a boy,” Shirley says to the pregnant Rose, “The world is too cruel for girls.” Their time on screen together is complicated, occasionally unsettling as reality and imagination meld. It’s fascinating work in a film that is a slow burn.
“Shirley” takes its time to get where it is going, building an atmosphere of oppression slowly and carefully. Decker’s distorted dream-like visual approach is often beautiful, as though we’re watching the film through a psychological prism. It creates atmosphere but doesn’t provide the thrills that Jackson herself might have been able to infuse into the telling of this tale.
James Schamus, a producer best known for his Oscar winning work with Ang Lee, makes his directorial debut with “Indgination.” The story of a young man’s coming-of-age isn’t a case of style over substance—it has both in spades—but of character over plot.
Based on Philip Roth’s novel of the same name, “Indignation” is the story of Marcus Messner (Logan Lerman), a young working class Jewish man who earns a scholarship to the WASPy Winesburg College in Ohio. It’s 1951 and his enrolment in school keeps him from being drafted to fight in Korea and out from under the thumb of his over protective father.
A studious young man—his roommate says, “He’s a scholar who doesn’t have time for frivolities like the theatre.”—he immerses himself in his classes to the exclusion of almost everything else. The only break in his concentration comes in the form of Olivia Hutton (Sarah Gaddon), a beautiful classmate whose charms, both physically and intellectually, distract him from his work.
On their first and only date something happens (NO SPOILERS HERE) that plunge Marcus into previously uncharted personal territory. Eventually his intensity toward his schooling and Olivia draws the attention of Dean Caudwell (Tracy Letts), which threatens his place within the school and provides the film with its best scene.
Like other adaptations of Roth’s work “Indignation” is filled with richly drawn characters. Where it falls down is in the storytelling. Roth’s novel is a personal piece of work loosely based on his own 1950s college experience. It’s a look at life’s decisions and their consequences, intellectual purity and sexual discovery, all themes touched on in the film but without the benefit of Roth’s investigative, haunting prose.
What does shine through are the characters. In a break-out role Lerman holds the center of the movie, doing formidable work in scenes opposite Gaddon and Letts. His scenes with Gaddon brim with sexual attraction touched with longing and sadness but it is with Letts that Lerman does his best work. A mid-movie tour-de-force sees the two showdown in the moralistic Dean’s office, arguing everything from baseball to Bertrand Russell. The verbally jousting is the film’s high point; a lovely bit of acting that could stand on its own as a short film.
“Indignation” is about truth and consequences, unspoken love and inexperience, but mostly its about great acting from a fine cast.
“Noah” is not your father’s biblical movie. It’s an art house epic that filters the story through director Darren “Black Swan” Aronofsky’s impressionistic style.
The best way I can describe “Noah” is emotionally ambitious. It takes a familiar tale and shines a new light on it by highlighting Noah’s spiritual quandary. In the film—which takes liberties with the biblical story—he’s a vegan prophet who grapples with doing God’s will while balancing the needs of all of humanity, particularly his family. The meaning of faith and the consequences of adhering to that faith are the film’s main thrust, but as interesting as that is, the movie feels like one thing when it is addressing the spiritual and quite another—possibly a “Lord of the Rings” flick—when it is in action movie mode.
The movie starts at the beginning. Literally.
After a quick recap of Old Testament highlights—the Creation, Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden and Cain vs Abel—we meet Noah, the last descendent of Adam and Eve’s good hearted son Seth. The world he lives in is a dangerous place, ruled by Cain’s bloodthirsty bloodline but Noah (Russell Crowe) and family (Jennifer Connelly, Douglas Booth, Emma Watson, Logan Lerman and Leo McHugh Carroll) live peacefully as nature loving, proto hippies. That is, until Noah has a disturbing apocalyptic dream. Consulting with his grandfather Methuselah (Anthony Hopkins) he determines The Creator wants him to build an ark and laden it with two of every creature on earth in advance of a great flood that will destroy mankind and the violence they perpetrate. It’s ultimate Mulligan—a do over for the planet—but Noah will have to make some troubling decisions to fulfill God’s will.
Some may criticize the movie for not being reverent enough, but Aronofsky treats the story as a living breathing thing and not an artifact from another time. The addition of a spectacular creation of the world sequence, as narrated by Noah, may annoy Creationists, but is a moving and beautiful retelling of the biblical story.
Aronofsky may play fast and loose with Noah’s story, but underlines the spirituality that is at the very heart of the tale as evidenced by the Seven Days of Creation scene.
He’s also aided by a terrific performance from Crowe.
Crowe’s been in a bit of a slump in recent years. The dangerous, complex actor of movies like “Gladiator” and “A Beautiful Mind” seemed to have taken a backseat to the performer who thought making “The Man with the Iron Fists” was a good idea. “Noah” is a nice reminder of Crowe’s delicate mix of fearsome masculinity and subtle sensitivity and his tortured performance hits Noah’s zealotry square on the head.
But having said that, Aronofsky moves in mysterious ways. He shot the epic almost entirely in close up and the flood scene could have used a bit more Cecil B. DeMille. Aronofsky means this to be a personal story of a man with the weight of the world on his shoulders, but it is still an end of the world movie. Despite the occasional Peter Jackson flourish—like the stone giants The Watchers and sweeping crane shots—“Noah” doesn’t feel as big as it should. It has big ideas, but the expected sweeping visuals aren’t there.
“Noah” is a thought-provoking take on a familiar story that will keep you guessing until the end credits roll.
“Percy Jackson: Sea of Monsters” is Greek mythology as written by Harry Potter. Borrowing heavily from the boy wizard’s adventures, it mixes and matches ancient stories with some more recent story elements to create a film that moves along at such a clip you won’t even realize you’re experiencing story déjà vu.
The sequel to 2010’s “The Lightening Thief” sees Percy (Logan Lerman), the half-human son of Poseidon, wracked with self-doubt about his status as a hero. Seems he is the Rodney Dangerfield of his home, Camp Half Blood, labeled a “one quest wonder” by his rival Clarisse (Leven Rambin).
When the camp is attacked, however, he learns it is his prophesy to be the salvation or the cause of the destruction of his people. He takes it upon himself with help from his teen Cyclops half-brother Tyson (Douglas Smith), satyr buddy Grover (Brandon T. Jackson) and Athena’s daughter, Annabeth Chase (Alexandra Daddario) to travel to the Sea of Monsters (we know it as the Bermuda Triangle) and find the Golden Fleece before lightning thief Luke (Jake Abel) uses it to resurrect Cronos, a dastardly titan so evil he devoured his own children, not Kronos, the world’s largest manufacturer of gyros.
“Percy Jackson: Sea of Monsters” will entertain your eyes with wild creatures—a mechanical “transformer” bull, a cool looking horsefish—but don’t expect anything original. It’s a competent, if forgettable movie, that borrows so heavily from the “Harry Potter” movies I kept expecting a Daniel Radcliffe cameo.
Logan Lerman, back for his second kick at the Percy can, is good in a rather thankless part but he’s overshadowed by the creatures and scene-chewing character actors like Nathan Fillion and Stanley Tucci who both look like they’re having more fun than anyone else in the movie. For Lerman’s best work check out the underrated and under seen “The Perks of Being a Wallflower” (in which he co-stars with actual “Harry Potter” star Emma Watson.)
One character, a six-armed demi-god barista, sums up the whole of “Percy Jackson: Sea of Monsters.” I like a latte as much as anyone, and respect those who work their magic on the espresso machine, but a well coordinated demi-god with six arms could probably find a better way to express his art than selling coffee. Same with the movie. With such rich source material to draw from the filmmakers should be offering up something more than a tepid rehash of things we’ve seen before.
On the surface “The Perks of Being a Wallflower” seems like warmed over John Hughes, another story about square pegs trying to fit in round holes. Based on a popular junior adult novel, it uses one of the building blocks of teen drama—the friendless teen trying to navigate high school in his freshman year—as a starting place but layers in equal amounts of teen angst and exuberance before the final class bell rings.
The wallflower of the title is Charlie (Logan Lerman), a troubled boy entering the first year of high school. Shunned by the cool kids he attaches himself to Sam (Emma Watson) and Patrick (Ezra Miller), two free spirited seniors who take him under their wing. Patrick is a flamboyant gay teen, prone to grand pronouncements and dressing up like “The Rocky Horror Picture Show’s” Fran ‘N Furter. Sam is a damaged but sweet girl with a past. Along with a gaggle of misfit friends like Mary Elizabeth (Mae Whitman), the rich kid whop passes herself off as a punk rock Buddhist, Sam and Patrick introduce Charlie to his first party (“This is what fun looks like!”), his first kiss and first love. Along with all these firsts comes confusion, which, for Charlie, isn’t a first.
Director Stephen Chbosky has done a great job of portraying the time in a teen’s life when making a mixed tape for a girl spoke louder than words. It’s hard to know when the film is supposed to be set—the music ranges from late seventies to late eighties, played on vinyl, cassettes and CDs—but the mix of music establishes a timeless feel for the film, suggesting that these songs are simply the sound of teen angst, which doesn’t change, no matter the time or place.
The movie benefits greatly from a skilled cast of young people. Lerman, probably best known as D’Artagnan in the recent “Three Musketeers” reboot, brings a sweet befuddlement to the role that masks the hurt that has shaped his young life. Watson leaves Hermione at home to play Sam, a wise-beyond-her years girl who makes simple mistakes. The showiest role belongs to Miller who has cornered the market on playing troubled teens after his memorable performance in last year’s “The Trouble with Kevin.” He is flamboyant without being campy, tough and frail simultaneously.
“The Perks of Being a Wallflower” has more substance than most movies based on young adult novels, and is an affecting story of friendship, loss and redemption. Also, any movie that uses David Bowie’s “Heroes” as a recurring theme can’t be all bad.
With the Harry Potter franchise winding to a close along comes the new kid on the block, Percy Jackson. Despite the protests of director Chris Columbus (who helmed the first two Potter movies and produced the third)—“It’s nothing like Harry Potter,” he said, “Harry Potter is about wizardry and this is Greek mythology.”— Percy Jackson & the Olympians: The Lightning Thief plays like the boy wizard’s long lost cousin.
Percy (Zac Efron look-a-like Logan Lerman) is an awkward teenager with problems in school, an unhappy home life and a lout of a step father who smells like Limberger cheese. On a school trip he is attacked by a winged daughter of the night who accuses him of stealing Zeus’s lightening bolt, the most powerful weapon ever created. Thus begins his Poseidon adventure. He is swept away to a mysterious training camp by his mother Sally (Catherine Keener) and Grover (Brandon T. Jackson) his best friend / satyr protector. There he learns about his true heritage; that his mother had an affair with Poseidon (Kevin McKidd) and he is a demi-god—the son of a human and a god. He’s told the world is full of such half gods, some whose names cannot be divulged, he’s told are famous, “like White House famous.” To set things right and avoid a war of the gods which would likely destroy earth he must find the lightening bolt, return it to Zeus (Sean Bean) and rescue his mother from Hades (Steve Coogan), god of the underworld.
Percy Jackson & the Olympians: The Lightning Thief is its own movie, but there are unmistakable comparisons to Harry Potter. Percy may or may not have stolen Zeus’s lightening but he certainly steals some of Harry’s thunder. The lead character is half human, half supernatural; he goes to Hogwarts… er, I mean, Camp Half Blood to fine tune his powers; he chums around with Hermione and Ron types called Annabeth (Alexandra Daddario) and Grover and there’s even a mid-air Quidditch match… er, I mean battle scene. Yes it may be derivative, but its mish mash of Potter and Jason and the Argonauts is really fun and should appeal to tweens who will get caught up in the action / adventure.
The action is fun—there are battles with a Minotaur, a run-in with Medusa (Uma Thurman) and enough eight headed hydras to make Ray Harryhausen proud—but this is a much more straightforward movie than any of the Harry Potter films. The lore doesn’t run as deep, the dialogue is much more pedestrian and it is traditionally structured. But Chris Columbus hits all the rights notes for a kid’s movie, although it would have been interesting (and probably much cooler) to see what a director like Terry Gilliam could have done to stretch the fantasy elements of the story.
Whether or not Percy Jackson & the Olympians turns into some kind of Potter juggernaut is anyone’s guess. If nothing else it’s an imaginative fantasy for tweens and a crash course in Greek mythology to prep kids for Clash of the Titans coming later this year.
“The Three Musketeers,” a new 3D look at an old story, misses an opportunity to inject some much-needed spark into its storytelling by focusing on the wrong characters. In thirty some odd cinematic retellings of the classic Alexandre Dumas tale of bravery and swordplay, the focus has always been on the men. The new version finally features some grrrrl power, but squanders a great character by not giving her enough to do.
Shot on sumptuous sets in Germany, the first half of the film adheres closely to the Dumas novel. When we first meet D’Artagnan (Logan Lerman) he is a brash young man, leaving the countryside on his way to Paris where he intends to become one of the legendary Musketeers, just as his father had been. The elite swordsmen — Athos (Matthew McFadyen), Porthos (Ray Stevenson) and Aramis (Luke Evans)– however, have fallen on hard times. Warriors with no war to fight, they have become obsolete, more prone to drinking and womanizing than doing the King’s bidding. Soon enough the four men find a reason to pick up their swords again in the form of an English enemy, Lord Buckingham (Orlando Bloom), a devious holy man, Cardinal Richelieu (Christoph Waltz), the double crossing Milady DeWinter (Milla Jovovich) and the disappearance of the Queen Anne Diamonds.
“The Three Musketeers” looks beautiful, with costume and set decoration second to none, but beauty, as we all know, is only skin deep. It’s what’s underneath that really matters, and unfortunately, there’s not much under the surface.
The Musketeers themselves are empty suits, beautifully costumed without any substance. Only ray Stevenson as the head-bashing Porthos brings any sense of adventure or fun to his character. The rest are seat fillers for actors you would have rather seen in these roles. The silky-voiced McFadyen makes one wonder what Alan Rickman could have done with this role, while Evans begs comparison to no one because he barely registers. Lerman, the film’s lead, is a pretty face delivering lines … badly.
Even Orlando Bloom, who some “Pirate of the Caribbean” style experience with this sort of epic story is mostly distinguished by his Elvis-bedhead hairstyle. Even Waltz, who has playing a bad guy down to a science, fails to really make an impression.
The men mostly strike out but Jovovich as the film’s resident evil character, the double-crossing Milady, is tons of fun but underused. Flip-flopping her loyalties she’s a dastardly, but underused, piece of work. If she—and her stylish corsets and even more stylish fight scenes—had been the star of the show “The Three Musketeers” might have been able to distinguish itself.
As it is it’s simply a retread of an already familiar story mixed with “Wild Wild West” style anachronisms — the old school airships, for instance, have been done before and better in “Time Bandits” — which makes the sequel-ready ending seem overly optimistic.
