During her lifetime, and for many years afterward, Diana Spencer was the most famous woman in the world. Compared to Lady Di’s worldwide twinkle notorious bright lights like Elizabeth Taylor and Madonna seemed dim by comparison.
She led a tumultuous life, cut short at age 36 in a tunnel in Paris. She became legend, the stuff of Elton John songs and now a movie, starring Naomi Watts, details the years she was separated from Prince Charles.
“Diana” is a romance about a woman in an impossible circumstance falling in love and trying to reboot her life.
According to the film Diana’s attraction to heart surgeon Dr. Hasnat Khan (Naveen Andrews) was love at first sight. He’s a bit of a rogue–a surgeon who smokes–and a philosopher–“You don’t perform an operation,” he says, “it performs you.”–who takes himself and his job very seriously.
He loves Diana, but her fame interferes with the focus he needs for his job (SPOILER ALERT, BUT ONLY IF YOU HAVEN’T READ A NEWSPAPER OR MAGAZINE IN TWENTY YEARS) which complicates their already complicated lives.
Eventually, despite Diana’s assertion that “I’m a princess, I get what I want,” he breaks up with her and she finds solace and her fate in the arms of another man, Dodi Fayed (Cas Anvar).
“Diana” plays like a Cole’s Notes of Diana’s last years. It flits through time like a distracted tse tse fly, jumping from one unsatisfying scene to the next. I would imagine the choppiness is supposed to create a sense of the chaos that swirled around Diana, but instead it acts as a disjointed and extended montage.
There are moments that hit the mark. “I’m having a great time,” she says, sitting alone in an opera house, when it is clear she is not. Those moments reveal much about living a life once removed from reality but they are rare in a movie that seems content with skimming the surface.
Combine that with AMAZINGLY clunky dialogue, some supposition—it suggests Dodi Fayed was little more than a pawn to make Hazenat jealous—and the idea that Diana was a manipulator of the media that killed her and you have a film that plays like a “National Enquirer” exposé with better pictures.
“Fair Game” could be re-titled “One Hundred Minutes of Sean Penn Yelling ‘If We Don’t Tell the Truth No One Will!’” The retelling of the ripped-from-the-headlines tale of Valerie Plame (Naomi Watts), whose job as an undercover CIA agent was exposed by White House officials in an attempt to discredit her husband Joseph Wilson’s (Penn) claim that the Bush administration had falsified information about the existence of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, is a different kind of spy story. There are no guns, no gadgets, just words—many of the yelled by Penn—classified documents and furtive meetings on lonely park benches. It does a nice job of recreating Bush era paranoia—“We don’t want this smoking gun to turn into a mushroom cloud!”—and exploring the chasm between truth and policy, but as a drama takes way too long to get to the meat of the story. Three quarters of the movie whips past before the central event, Plame’s unceremonious unveiling as a spy, happens.
The build-up is filled with nice details, like Scooter Libby’s (David Andrews) self satisfied smirk when he puts the plan to get revenge on Plame and her husband in motion, and the insight into the life of a spy who juggles a home life with international intrigue, but it feels padded. Also, director Doug Liman has made some very strange and almost unwatchable choices in regard to the camera work. His camera is a little too restless, constantly roaming, which, I suppose, is meant to give us a “you-are-there” feeling, but instead induces motion sickness, particularly in the boardroom scenes.
Performance wise, however, the movie is top notch. Watt works as Plame, and Penn is passionate, crafting an a performance so big it has it’s own gravitational pull that asks whether Wilson was really a truth seeker or simply a self aggrandizing opportunist.
“Fair Game” is a mostly interesting look at our recent past, too bad director Liman takes too long to develop the important part of the story.
Naomi Watts has battled Japanese spirits and domesticated a twenty-five foot tall ape, but in “The Impossible” she confronts a natural disaster she can’t tame—the 2004 Boxing Day tsunami which devastated fourteen countries bordering the Indian Ocean, claiming 230,000 lives.
Watts and Ewan McGregor are Henry and Maria, Japan-based-Brits who travel to Thailand for Christmas with their three kids Lucas (Tom Holland), Simon (Oaklee Pendergast) and Thomas (Samuel Joslin). Relaxing at a tony beachside resort, mom is lounging by the pool reading a book while dad splashes around with the kids. Suddenly a wave the height of an office building comes inland, destroying everything in its path and separating the family who float in different directions during the melee.
The first hour focuses on Maria and Lucas as they try and reach safety before switching gears to henry’s search for his wife and son.
In the immediate aftermath of the wave there isn’t much dialogue, just intense scenes of survival. Director Juan Antonio Bayona takes his time, really showing the immense power of the wave as it sweeps people, cars and even houses aside. It is harrowing stuff that hammers home the absolute helplessness of being in a situation governed by Mother Nature.
The second part of the story is more conventional, though still potent. Henry’s search for his wife is the stuff of action films, but McGregor brings some highly charged emotion to what could have been a standard against-all-odds scenario.
McGregor is good, but it is the kids and Watts that stick. As a mother who presses through injury to get her son to safety Watts is raw and real. It’s a great performance that will likely get recognized in award season.
The kids, particularly Holland as eldest Lucas, are naturals, and guaranteed to tug at your heartstrings. Bring a towel to soak up the tears.
“The Impossible” is more than simply the story of the tsunami or the family, it is about humanity’s ability to pull together in times of crisis; of those moments when a small gesture, like a hug or a fresh shirt can make a world of difference. It’s about people at their best in the worst of situations, and even though the ending is a bit pat, it makes you believe that there can be happy coincidences even in chaos.
In this time of economic downturn when banks seem to be responsible for leading the world down the financial rabbit hole The International may be the timeliest movie to come down the pike so far this year. Loosely based on the 1980s Bank of Credit & Commerce International banking scandal, the bankers portrayed in the film are evil, money hungry thugs who care more for money than people; the kind of guys who spend as much time pouring over Sun Tzu’s Art of War as they do ledgers. In other words exactly the people who recently brought Wall Street to its knees.
The fictional IBBC is an international banking concern that deals in more than cold hard cash. Instead of offering a toaster when you open an account these guys pony-up guns and missiles. By supplying arms and advanced weaponry to warring countries they hope to control the debt that war creates. “When you control the debt,” says the inscrutable Wilhelm Wexler (the great Armin Mueller-Stahl), “you control everything.” The only thing standing between IBBC and world domination is Louis Salinger (Clive Owen), an Interpol agent who’s part bank inspector à la It’s a Wonderful Life and part CSI: Luxembourg. When he and his American counter-part Eleanor Whitman (Naomi Watts) realize the only way to bring down the bank is to step outside the law the only question that remains is: Will the collateral damage be worth it?
Clive Owen plays his now patented steely character with a troubled past, a person we’ve seen him essay in everything from Sin City to Shoot ‘Em Up to Children of Men. He’s all guts and glory, the kind of guy who takes a beating but keeps on ticking. Owen has these characters down pat—the determined scowl and smoldering eyes—but is left hung to dry by a screenplay that seems to have been written by the patented Raymond Chandler Hard-boiled Detective Script Generator.
Not only does first time scriptwriter Eric Singer deliver a paint-by- numbers thriller but he saddles the actors with clumsy tough-guy dialogue that would have seemed corny in Humphrey Bogart’s day. Luckily director Tom Run Lola Run Tykwer has cast good actors like Owen and Mueller-Stahl because who else could deliver old hat lines like, “Sometimes the hardest decision in life is knowing which bridge to cross and which bridge to burn. I’m the one you burn,” without feeling a distinct sense of déjà vu.
Despite an implausible plot—the conspiracy, not the evil bankers part—Tykwer and cast pull some memorable moments from the thin material. It’s stylish, with some moments of great tension and a wild shoot-out in a New York landmark that almost justifies its two hour running time.
When The International shoots—that is expend thousands of rounds of ammo—it scores. The action is quite good; it’s just too bad the intrigue isn’t intriguing enough.
Given the significance of J. Edgar Hoover to very fabric of his country it’s not surprising that he is the subject of a big screen biopic with a-list talent both in front of the camera–Leonardo DiCaprio in the title role and Naomi Watts–and behind–Clint Eastwood. No, what’s surprising is that it to this long. The man credited with creating the modern method of crime investigation died almost four decades ago. It’s almost as though he has hidden files on everyone in Hollywood, stashed away. Waiting…
“J. Edgar” spans fifty years, focusing on its subject’s career and the information he both gathered to use as leverage against his enemies and the secret he guarded which could have ruined his carefully constructed image as America’s top cop. Controversial, enigmatic and tyrannical, the power hungry Hoover used his position to bend the law to its breaking point in the name of reform, patriotism and personal glory. Trusty sidekick and constant companion Clyde Tolson (Armie Hammer) and faithful secretary Helen Gandy (Naomi Watts) assist in Hoover’s efforts to build the FBI, find the Lindbergh baby and discredit Martin Luther King, but this is Hoover’s story, warts and all.
“J. Edgar” is a handsome film. Eastwood brings a classic sensibility to the story, shooting on his now trademarked desaturated film stock, which gives an almost sepia tone to the movie, as though we’re actually looking at footage from years ago. It’s a nice touch that visually establishes a sense of history to go along with the period costumes and sets.
So far, so good. But as J. Edgar himself understood, appearances can be deceiving. Underneath the fine performances–more on those later–and craftsman like filmmaking is… not much. Or too much, depending on your point of view.
Lance Dustin Black’s script is ambitious, covering fifty turbulent years, both politically and personally for Hoover. But as the story jumps from decade to decade, interweaving old and young versions of the characters, you can’t help but wish Black and Eastwood had chosen one aspect of the story and told it well instead of this scattershot approach. It’s a case of too much information and too little insight.
DiCaprio is remarkable–and Oscar worthy–in his ability to convincingly play Hoover over the span of fifty years, although it must be said he is aided by some impressive makeup. Too bad Hammer as Hoover’s right hand man—and possible love interest—Clyde Tolson and Naomi Watts as the ever-faithful secretary Miss. Gandy, aren’t given the same advantage. Hammer, although effective in his role, resembles a burn victim for much of the movie and Watts, with her running eyes and wrinkled visage, a living Dorian Grey portrait.
The relationships between Hoover and, well, everyone, don’t feel genuine and as a result there is no emotional impact when the story could use one. We never get a true sense of why these two faithful companions give over their lives to Hoover, who, at best is a cold, calculating tyrant. Eastwood is clearly trying to create a real person out of Hoover, but having him writhing around on the floor, wearing his mother’s jewelry and dress, is a rather melodramatic way to go about it.
2005 will surely go down in history as the Year of the Remake. Theatres saw rehashed television shows like Bewitched and The Dukes of Hazzard hit the big screen, while old movies ideas like War of the Worlds and The House of Wax were reused, usually given a big budget do-over.
Unless you have been living on a remote island with only a giant ape and some restless cannibals for company you must have heard that Lord of the Rings director Peter Jackson has taken on the biggest recycling project of the year—a remake of the classic 1933 film King Kong. In doing so Jackson has created an epic three-hour movie that adds to the legacy of the original without overshadowing it.
As you might expect the effects are amazing. A T-Rex chase scene is thrilling; Kong’s home base of Skull Island makes Jurassic Park look like Central Park and the Spider pit scene, cut from the 1933 original has been restored in all its gruesome glory but the most amazing thing here is how Jackson (and actor Andy Serkis) make us actually feel something for a 25 foot tall computer animated ape by combining 21st century technological wizardry with old-fashioned heart. Kong Redux behaves more like a real ape than the original, but the emotional core that made the 1933 version so great is still there. This Kong seems as genuine as any of the real-life actors he is working opposite.
With this version of King Kong Peter Jackson confirms his post LOTR reputation as a virtuoso of the epic film, infusing big-picture storytelling with a human touch.
During her lifetime, and for many years afterward, Diana Spencer was the most famous woman in the world. Compared to Lady Di’s worldwide twinkle notorious bright lights like Elizabeth Taylor and Madonna seemed dim by comparison.
